Word: shrewd
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...only psychological revelation in Alice Neel's painting of Roosevelt was that beneath the facade of charm was a shrewd politician with eyes as calculating and cold as a cigar-store Indian...
DIED. Louis Marx Sr., 85, manufacturer and philanthropist; in White Plains, N.Y. The Henry Ford of toymaking, he relied on mass production, underpricing, and a shrewd adapter's eye. Among his discoveries was a Filipino folk toy that in 1928 became the yoyo. A collector of famous friends, notably President Dwight Eisenhower, he aided poor children with 1 million gift toys a year...
...blessed with it. "Roosevelt weather" was the envious politician's term for the fact that the sun always seemed to come out when F.D.R. was scheduled to speak. Roosevelt was superstitious and avoided 13 at dinner, but he knew perfectly well that "luck" is mainly a matter of shrewd ness and timing. Characteristically, he was an expert at seven-card stud poker, with one-eyed face cards wild...
...Buckley's Eisenhower is a refreshing bit of revisionism. From behind the famous grin and fractured press-conference syntax, the Great Golfer emerges as crisp, shrewd and decisive: "Herter, go back and study the minutes of all National Security Council meetings going back three months at least. Then assume everything we said is known to the Kremlin. Report back to me, and advise me how this will affect a) our policy; b) our negotiations; c) our public statements . . . Twining? Do the same thing . . . Get back to me by the fifth of October, or by the time their missiles land...
...part, Reagan won these victories through shrewd strategy. On the reconciliation bill, for example, the President's calls for bipartisan cooperation induced the Democrats, who control the House, to draft compromises giving Reagan most of what he wanted. He then seized on these concessions to seek still more, artfully cajoling conservative House Democrats to defy their baffled leaders and vote his way. But mostly the President won by exercising raw electoral power. His appeals to the public on TV, and pressure from Reagan supporters in their home districts, convinced many legislators that they could vote against the President only...