Word: compounding
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...inability to influence, much less control, events in this troubled land. Last week, on the day after Ayatullah Khomeini exhorted his followers to lay down their arms, a band of 100 Iranian leftists attacked the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Barrages of machine-gun and automatic-weapons fire raked the compound. Two Marine guards were wounded and an Iranian embassy employee was killed. After two hours of skirmishing, the attackers seized the embassy and took its occupants, including Ambassador William H. Sullivan, as prisoners. It is likely that only the intervention of forces loyal to the Ayatullah, who responded to Sullivan...
...Persian king. Its 200 verdant acres, surrounded by California desert, are reached by way of Frank Sinatra Drive. Electronically operated gates open onto a flower-flanked drive and the sprawling dusky pink volcanic-rock main mansion, with its five bedrooms and 6,400-sq.-ft. living room. The compound includes two five-bedroom guesthouses, a swimming pool, several lakes, and a nine-hole golf course, all maintained by some 60 servants and security guards. Last week the State Department accorded the estate diplomatic status. This enabled Washington to install special security measures, among them a coterie of Secret Service agents...
...perceived antagonists were foreign managers and technicians, most of whom have departed. Says one Iranian oil worker: "The foreigners who were here earned enormous salaries for jobs that any one of us could have done. The Shah thought we were too stupid." In the foreign-dominated management compound at Ahwaz, for example, employees enjoyed air conditioning, swimming pools and modern bathrooms. Their kitchens were modern, right down to the inclusion of garbage-disposal units in the sinks. The housing units were tree-shaded, and protected by high fences topped with concertinas of barbed wire...
Almost as nerve-racking as the worries about physical safety is the overpowering sense of isolation. Communications in Iran are unreliable, with the result that the country has become a vast rumor mill. Says an elementary school teacher at the U.S. compound of Shahin Shahr, near Isfahan: "We alternate between panic and being very blasé. Some days we don't get a thing accomplished." Desert picnics, once popular, are now regarded as too big a risk for families to take. Says one American housewife: "It's a big social event to sip coffee and listen...
...angry mob threw eggs and rocks at the U.S. embassy on Taipei's Chung Hsiao West Road. Some 2,000 tried to storm an American compound and were driven back by Marines with tear gas. Near by, students daubed slogans on white sheets taped to the walls. One message: "We protest American recognition of the Communist bandits. We will oppose Communism to the death...