Word: middlemen
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...hands to their eventual resting place was typical of a private dealer's transactions. "We are the matchmakers of the art world," says Dealer Harold Diamond, who is himself so discreet that he refuses to disclose the names of any of his customers or sources. They are the middlemen who arrange the transfer of precious works of art from sellers (usually European) to buyers (usually American) with the tact of a diplomat and the cunning of a spy. They shun publicity, they do not have public openings or exhibitions, they most definitely do not open their doors...
Since Khrushchev's one-man show came to an end, his successors have replaced his shoe-pounding, maxim-spouting ebullience with deliberateness that has long since crossed over the border into dullness. Conservative, guarded, suspicious, they exemplify a whole generation of bureaucratic middlemen. Writes British Kremlinologist Robert Conquest: "Vacillation, the attempt to combine contradictory drives, has been the pattern. The predominant motive seems to be a desire to avoid all change and reform in the hope that no crisis will spring up and that the contradictions within their society and economy will go away...