Word: briefs
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Dates: during 1980-1980
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...brief time, U.S. officials hardened by months of false signals from Iran dared to believe that the hostages might be home for Christmas. The optimism ebbed when Iran's latest bargaining statement, labeled a "final answer" by Iranian leaders, arrived in Washington early Friday, the 412th day of the hostage ordeal. The message was "unreasonable," said Secretary of State Edmund S. Muskie, because it "would require us to do things which we cannot do legally." It also, he added, made it very difficult to resolve the matter before the inauguration...
There could no longer be much doubt that the Iranians were anxious to be rid of their American prisoners. In a brief Tehran radio interview Wednesday, Prime Minister Raja'i said of the hostage question, "It is a dead issue now. It has no more political value." He was only admitting the obvious. For Iranians, it is the war with Iraq that has become the overriding issue in the power struggle between the right-wing clergy and moderate President Abolhassan Banisadr. To the clergymen's dismay, Banisadr has emerged as a popular hero. As commander-in-chief...
Whatever course the new government may take, it stands little chance of ending the political violence that has left nearly 9,000 people dead this year. But the Salvadorans at least made peace last week with neighboring Honduras, eleven years after their brief but bloody "soccer war" (so called because its immediate cause was a riotous football match between the two national teams). In a sort of prelude to the official treaty signing, the two national teams met on the soccer field twice last month and, diplomatically enough, traded 2-1 victories. Most Salvadorans seemed to welcome the games...
Already the press is getting used to the way the President-elect-at least before taking office-stays in seclusion, says nothing or prudently contents himself with brief, noncommittal, cameo appearances. In his silence, others, perhaps hoping to speak for him or eager to influence him, fill the gap. The sounds to be heard all over Washington are of trial balloons collapsing and the steady drizzle of leaks...
...turn out to be practitioners of voice-over chic, tenderly broadcasting all the half-baked thoughts they ever half-understood about Fellini. Dial a phone number and the absent owner's talking machine coughs a set piece of cuteness before granting a moment for you to interject a brief message. As for bridge players, the typical foursome hardly finishes the play of a hand before the air burbles with a redundant rehashing...