Word: counterweight
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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There are many power centers in a free society-foundations, corporations, the print press-whose top executives are not "elected" and have no political constituency. Many people are legitimately concerned about the responsibility and power such men wield. One answer is that they represent an important counterweight to the sometimes excessive power of Government; another is that their influence is limited by competition and diversity. In TV, greater diversity is undoubtedly possible through proper financial support of the fourth, public network and a larger number of local stations...
...Counterweight...
...talks begin, then either the negotiations never start or they drag on for several years without accomplishing anything. The Soviet Union will wait to see how much they can get before they sit down." McNamara, when he argued for arms control and against certain weapons projects, often provided a counterweight to civilian militarism on Capitol Hill. Today the balance is tipped sharply so that opposition to the military, particularly in the Senate, threatens to go to the opposite extreme. While the new skepticism can have healthy results in terms of a more realistic defense structure, it can also degenerate into...
Shouldered Burden. One result of this shifting balance could well be a French decision to bring Britain into the Common Market as a counterweight to the increasingly potent neighbor across the Rhine. De Gaulle favored a "Europe of nation-states" and doubted that political union was possible or desirable. The U.S. has long backed British membership, as have France's five Common Market partners; Pompidou has already indicated that he thinks British entry is not forever out of the question. If the French now help to make Britain more firmly a part of Europe, what may finally come about...
...franc cannot mask the reality of France's diminished stature. In order to stop the outflow of francs, France is now sealed behind a monetary barrier, deprived of much of the economic freedom that De Gaulle has used in the past to act as arbiter of Europe and counterweight to West Germany. Nothing so underscored France's reduced position as the cancellation of next year's nuclear tests in the Pacific, in which France was expected to explode its first missile-sized H-bomb. Doubtless the general will continue to talk of grandeur and gloire with...