Word: becker
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...actress whose haphazardly radical political involvements qualify her (á la Vanessa Redgrave) for the role Kurtz wants her to play. She is the rebellious middle-class type who could very well be swept away by a sensual young Palestinian and his burning desire to regain his homeland. Kurtz assigns Becker, an aging but still handsome Israeli war hero, to recruit Charlie and then teach her how to act in "the theater of deeds." A fictitious love affair must be fabricated between Charlie and the younger brother, whom the Israelis have captured. When he is killed, as the plan now requires...
This plot is not simple even in design, and its execution proves fiendishly complex. Charlie is an unknown quantity with uncertain loyalties. To be made plausible to the Palestinians, she must be coached by Becker in the rhetoric of the dispossessed. He impersonates her imagined lover: "You know how the Zionists described my country before they seized it? 'A land without a people for a people without land.' We did not exist! In their minds, the Zionists had already committed genocide; all that remained for them was the fact. And you, the British, were the architects of this...
Charlie shows signs of taking such lessons too much to heart. During a fierce argument with Becker, she calls his colleagues "bastards" and ridicules him for hypocrisy: "One minute our bleeding heart, the next our red-toothed warrior. Whereas all you really are-when it comes down to it-is a bloodthirsty, land-grabbing little Jew." He steps back into his own character long enough to slap her, twice and very hard. Shuttling between Palestinian enclaves in Lebanon, Charlie realizes that hostile aircraft have become new facts in her life: "It had not occurred to her, in her ignorance, that...
Anthony Hoffman, media analyst for A.G. Becker, an investment banking firm, thinks that, on balance, the networks have done a good job. "The reason profits evened out in the late '70s," he maintains, "is not because the ratings dropped but because production costs were increasing, about 20% annually. In the past couple of years the networks have let some air out of their shows' ballooning budgets. And even if the overall share of the audience drops to 65% or so, they'll do O.K. Of course they'd like to get back into series syndication...
...helped guide the reorganization of the ailing Reading Railroad into the Consolidated Rail Corp. (Conrail). In addition to his experience in capital ways, Lewis' value lies in his background as a corporate troubleshooter. Says Anthony Hoffman, a vice president of the New York City brokerage firm A.G. Becker: "His political reputation and skills will be an added asset when it comes to the hunt for new cable franchises, but what is really being relied on here is his business ability in what constitutes a turnaround situation...