Word: commands
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Sure enough, what began as a zany stunt swiftly escalated into a major crisis for the Soviet military command. Communist Party Leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who returned to Moscow on Friday from East Berlin, where he and Defense Minister Sergei Sokolov had been attending a Warsaw Pact summit, acted decisively. The next day Gorbachev convened an emergency meeting of the Politburo in the Kremlin. After that session, the Politburo fired Sokolov, 75, and Marshal of Aviation Alexander Koldunov, 63, who headed the nation's air- defense system. Sokolov was replaced as the top Soviet military leader by General of the Army...
...Governor-General then proposed a new scheme to bring the crisis to the "speediest possible conclusion." He suggested dissolving Parliament and organizing new elections. He also proposed a council of advisers to study the 1970 constitution and suggest changes. With no one clearly in command, Ganilau said he should become the temporary head of government...
Among these new weapons is a bomb that would produce mostly microwaves; exploded in space, it could fry the electronic circuitry and computer chips of an enemy command center. Another bomb would concentrate the force of a nuclear blast on a small target; aimed at, say, the Kremlin, it could leave the rest of Moscow intact. The result, says Physicist Ted Taylor, "is a weapon as different from current nuclear weapons as a rifle is technologically from gunpowder." It is, he continues, "qualitatively a new phase in nuclear weapons development...
Altman told his wife he had purchased the violin for $100 from a "friend." These days a Stradivarius can command as much as $1 million. Altman's widow will have to settle for an undisclosed reward from the instrument's rightful owner, Lloyd's of London, which 51 years ago paid the violin's last owner $30,000 for the loss...
...military takeover," announced Lieut. Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka. "Stay down and remain calm." In minutes Rabuka and his men rounded up the recently installed Prime Minister, Dr. Timoci Bavadra, and the 27 members of his ruling coalition. After placing the politicians in military detention, Rabuka declared that he was in command of the country...