T hough most of the headlines of my early months in office concerned the effort to define, defend, and pass my economic plan; gays in the military; and Hillarys health-care work, foreign policy was always there, an ever-present part of my daily routine and concern. The general impression among Washington observers was that I wasnt too interested in foreign affairs and wanted to spend as little time as possible on them. Its true that the overwhelming focus of the campaign had been on domestic issues; our economic troubles demanded that. But, as I had said over and over, increasing global interdependence was erasing1 the divide between foreign and domestic policy. And the new world order President Bush had proclaimed after the fall of the Berlin Wall was rife2 with chaos3 and big, unresolved questions.
Early on, my national security advisor4, Tony Lake, had declared that success in foreign affairs is often defined by preventing or defusing problems before they develop into headaches and headline grabbers. If we do a really good job, he said, the public may never know it, because the dogs wont5 bark. When I took office, we had a whole kennel6 full of barking hounds, with Bosnia and Russia howling the loudest, and several others, including Somalia, Haiti, North Korea, and Japans trade policy, growling7 in the background.
The breakup of the Soviet8 Union and the collapse9 of communism in the Warsaw Pact10 nations raised the prospect11 that Europe might become democratic, peaceful, and united for the first time in history. Whether it would happen turned on four great questions: Would East and West Germany be reunited; would Russia become a truly democratic, stable, nonimperial nation; what would happen to Yugoslavia, a cauldron of diverse ethnic13 provinces, which had been held together by the iron will of Marshal Tito; and would Russia and the former Communist countries be integrated into the European Union and the transatlantic NATO alliance with the United States and Canada?
By the time I became President, Germany had been reunited under the visionary leadership of Chancellor14 Helmut Kohl, with the strong support of President Bush and despite reservations in Europe about the political and economic power of a resurgent Germany. The other three questions were still open, and I knew that one of my most important responsibilities as President was to see that they were answered correctly.
During the election campaign, both President Bush and I had supported aid to Russia. At first I was more assertive15 than he was, but after prodding16 by former president Nixon, Bush announced that the G-7, the seven largest industrial nationsthe United States, Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Japanwould provide $24 billion to support democracy and economic reform in Russia. By the time Yeltsin came to Washington in June 1992 as Russias president, he was grateful and openly supporting Bushs reelection. As I mentioned earlier, Yeltsin did agree to a courtesy meeting with me at Blair House on June 18, thanks to the friendship between Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev and Toby Gati, one of my foreign policy advisors17. It didnt bother me that Yeltsin was supporting Bush; I just wanted him to know that if I won, I would support him.
In November, a couple of days after the election, Yeltsin called to congratulate me and to urge me to come to Moscow as soon as possible to reaffirm Americas support for his reforms in the face of mounting opposition19 at home. Yeltsin had a hard row to hoe. He had been elected president of Russia in June 1991, when Russia was still part of the crumbling20 Soviet Union. In August, Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev was put under house arrest at his summer retreat on the Black Sea by conspirators21 intent on staging a coup18 dtat. Russian citizens took to the Moscow streets in protest. The defining moment of the drama came when Yeltsin, in office for just two months, climbed on a tank in front of the Russian White House, the parliamentary building under siege by the coup plotters. He urged the Russian people to defend their hard-won democracy. In effect, he was telling the reactionaries22, You may steal our freedom, but youll have to do it over my dead body. Yeltsins heroic clarion23 call galvanized domestic and international support, and the coup failed. By December, the Soviet Union had dissolved into a collection of independent states, and Russia had taken the Soviet seat on the United Nations Security Council.
But Yeltsins problems were not over. Reactionary24 elements, smarting from their loss of power, opposed his determination to withdraw Soviet troops from the Baltic nations of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia. Economic disaster loomed25, as the rotting remains26 of the Soviet economy were exposed to free-market reforms, which brought inflation and the sale of state-owned assets at low prices to a new class of ultra-rich businessmen called oligarchs, who made Americas robber barons27 of the late nineteenth century look like Puritan preachers. Organized-crime networks also moved into the vacuum created by the collapse of the Soviet state and spread their tentacles28 across the globe. Yeltsin had destroyed the old system, but had not yet been able to build a new one. He also had not developed a good working relationship with the Duma, Russias parliament, partly because he was by nature averse29 to compromise, partly because the Duma was full of people who longed for the old order or an equally oppressive new one rooted in ultra-nationalism.
Yeltsin was up to his ears in alligators30, and I wanted to help him. I was encouraged to do so by Bob Strauss, whom President Bush had sent to Moscow as our ambassador even though he was an ardent31 Democrat12 and a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Strauss said I could work with Yeltsin and give him good political advice, and he urged me to do both.
I was inclined to accept Yeltsins invitation to go to Russia, but Tony Lake said Moscow shouldnt be my first foreign stop, and the rest of my team said it would divert attention from our domestic agenda. They made strong arguments, but the United States had a big stake in Russias success, and we sure didnt want hard-liners, either Communists or ultra-nationalists, in control there. Boris made it easier when he suggested a meeting in a mutually acceptable third country.
About this time, I persuaded my old friend and Oxford33 housemate Strobe Talbott to leave Time magazine and come to work in the State Department to help us with policy on the former Soviet Union. By then, Strobe and I had been discussing Russian history and politics for almost twenty-five years. Ever since he translated and edited Khrushchevs memoirs34, Strobe had known and cared more about Russia and the Russian people than anyone else I knew. He had a fine analytical35 mind and a fertile imagination behind his proper professorial faade, and I trusted both his judgment36 and his willingness to tell me the unvarnished truth. There was no position in the State Department hierarchy37 that described what I wanted Strobe to do, so he set out to create one, with the blessing38 of Warren Christopher and the help of Dick Holbrooke, an investment banker and veteran foreign policy hand who had provided advice during the campaign and who would become one of the most important figures in my administration.
Eventually, Strobes new job had a title: ambassador-at-large and special advisor to the secretary of state on the new independent states of the former Soviet Union. He later became deputy secretary of state. I dont think five people could repeat Strobes title, but everybody knew what he did: he was our go to man on Russia. For eight years, he was by my side in all my meetings with Presidents Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin, eighteen with Yeltsin alone. Since Strobe spoke39 fluent Russian and took copious40 notes, his participation41 with me and his own interactions with the Russians guaranteed a precision and accuracy in our work that would prove invaluable42. Strobe chronicles our eight-year odyssey43 in his book The Russia Hand, which is remarkable44 not only for its insights but for the verbatim accounts of the colorful conversations I had with Yeltsin. Unlike what happens in most books of the genre45, the quotes are not reconstructions46; they are, for good or ill, what we actually said. Strobes main point is that I became my own Russia hand because, while not an expert on Russia, I knew one big thing: on the twin issues that had constituted the casus belli of the cold wardemocracy versus47 dictatorship at home and cooperation versus competition abroadYeltsin and I were, in principle, on the same side.
During the transition period, I had talked to Strobe a lot about the deteriorating48 situation in Russia and the imperative49 of averting50 disaster. At Renaissance51 Weekend, Strobe and his wife, Brooke, who had campaigned full-time52 with Hillary and was about to become head of the White House Fellows program, were jogging with me on Hilton Head beach. We wanted to talk about Russia, but the leader of our group, the great Olympic hurdler Edwin Moses, set such a brisk pace that I couldnt keep up and talk at the same time. We came upon Hillary taking her morning walk, so the three of us had an excuse to slow down and visit. President Bush was in Moscow signing the START II treaty with Yeltsin. It was good news, though like everything progressive Yeltsin did, it was facing strong opposition in the Duma. I told Strobe that things were changing so much in Russia that we couldnt have a completely defensive53 strategy; we had to help solidify54 and accelerate positive developments, especially those that would improve the Russian economy.
In February, I went over to Strobes house one night to see his family and talk about Russia. Strobe told me about a recent meeting hed had with Richard Nixon, in which the former President had urged us to support Yeltsin heavily. The $24 billion assistance package President Bush had announced the previous spring hadnt done that, because the international financial institutions wouldnt release the money until Russia had restructured its economy. We needed to do something now.
In early March, Yeltsin and I agreed to meet on April 3 and 4 in Vancouver, Canada. On March 8, Richard Nixon called on me at the White House to urge me personally to support Yeltsin. After a brief visit with Hillary and Chelsea, in which he reminded them that he was raised a Quaker and that his daughters, like Chelsea, had gone to Sidwell Friends School, he got down to business, saying I would be remembered as President more for what I did with Russia than for my economic policy. Later that night, I called Strobe to report on the Nixon conversation and to stress again how important it was that we do something at Vancouver to help Russia, with a high-impact follow-up at the annual G-7 summit in Tokyo in July. All through March, as I got updates from our foreign policy team and Larry Summers and his assistant David Lipton at Treasury55, I pushed them to think bigger and do more.
Meanwhile, in Moscow, the Duma was reducing Yeltsins power and endorsing56 the fruitless inflationary policies of the Russian Central Bank. On March 20, Yeltsin struck back with a speech announcing a public referendum for April 25 to determine whether he or the Duma ran the country; until then, he said, his presidential decrees would remain in effect, no matter what the Duma did. I watched the speech on one of two television sets in my private dining room off the Oval Office. The other TV was showing the NCAA tournament basketball game between the Arkansas Razorbacks and St. Johns University. I had a dog in both hunts.
My entire foreign policy team and I had a vigorous debate about how I should respond to Yeltsins speech. They all cautioned restraint, because Yeltsin was stretching the limits of his constitutional authority, and because he might lose. I disagreed. Yeltsin was in the fight of his life against the old Communists and other reactionaries. He was going to the people with a referendum. And I didnt care about the risk of losingI reminded our team that I had lost plenty of times myself. I had no interest in hedging my bets, and instructed Tony Lake to draft a statement of strong support. When he presented it to me, I made it even stronger and gave it to the press. In this case, I went with my gut57 instincts and placed a bet that Russia would stick with Yeltsin, and stay on the right side of history. My optimism was bolstered58 by Arkansas come-from-behind victory in the ball game.
Finally, in March, I got an assistance program I could support: $1.6 billion in direct aid to help Russia stabilize59 its economy, including money to provide housing for decommissioned military officers, positive work programs for now underemployed and frequently unpaid60 nuclear scientists, and more assistance in dismantling61 nuclear weapons under the recently enacted62 Nunn-Lugar program; food and medicine for those suffering from shortages; aid to support small business, independent media outlets63, nongovernmental organizations, political parties, and labor64 unions; and an exchange program to bring tens of thousands of students and young professionals to the United States. The aid package was four times what the previous administration had allocated65 and three times what I had originally recommended.
Although a public poll said that 75 percent of the American people were opposed to giving Russia more money, and we were already in a hard fight for the economic plan, I felt we had no choice but to press ahead. America had spent trillions of dollars in defense66 to win the Cold War; we couldnt risk reversal over less than $2 billion and a bad poll. To the surprise of my staff, the congressional leaders, including the Republicans, agreed with me. At a meeting I convened67 to push the plan, Senator Joe Biden, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, strongly endorsed69 the aid package. Bob Dole70 came around on the argument that we didnt want to foul71 up the postCold War era the way the victors in World War I had done. Their shortsightedness contributed mightily72 to World War II, in which Dole had served so heroically. Newt Gingrich was passionately73 in favor of helping74 Russia, saying it was a great defining moment for America and we had to do the right thing. As I told Strobe, Newt was trying to out-Russia me, which I was only too happy to have him do.
When Yeltsin and I got together on April 3, the meeting began a little awkwardly, with Yeltsin explaining that he had to walk a fine line between receiving U.S. assistance to help Russias transition to democracy and looking as if he was under Americas thumb. When we got to the details of our aid package, he said he liked it but needed more for housing for the military people he was bringing home from the Baltic states, many of whom were actually living in tents. After we resolved that issue, Yeltsin abruptly75 went on the offensive, demanding that I repeal76 the Jackson-Vanik amendment77, a 1974 law tying U.S. trade to free immigration from Russia, and end the observance of Captive Nations Week, which highlighted Soviet domination of countries like Poland and Hungary that were now free. Both these laws were largely symbolic78, without real impact on our relations, and I couldnt expend79 the political capital to change them and at the same time succeed in getting real help to Russia.
After the first session, my people worried that Id let Yeltsin harangue80 me the way Khrushchev had hectored Kennedy in their famous meeting in Vienna in 1961. They didnt want me to look weak. I wasnt worried about that, because the historical analogy was flawed. Yeltsin wasnt trying to make me look bad as Khrushchev had done to Kennedy; he was trying to make himself look good against enemies at home who were trying to do him in. In the week before our summit, they had tried to impeach81 him in the Duma. They had failed, but the motion got a lot of votes. I could take a little bombastic82 posturing83 if it helped to keep Russia on the right road.
In the afternoon, we agreed on a way to institutionalize our cooperation, with a commission headed by Vice32 President Gore84 and Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. The idea was developed by Strobe and Georgi Mamedov, the Russian deputy foreign minister, and it worked better than any of us could have imagined, thanks largely to the consistent and concentrated efforts made over the years by Al Gore and his Russian counterparts in working through a host of difficult, contentious85 problems.
On Sunday, April 4, we met in a more formal setting to discuss security issues, with Yeltsin and his advisors sitting across the table from me and mine. As before, Yeltsin began aggressively, demanding that we change our arms control positions and open American markets to Russian products like satellite rocket launchers without requiring export controls that would prohibit Russian sales of military technology to Americas adversaries86 like Iran and Iraq. With the help of our hard-nosed expert, Lynn Davis, I hung tough on export controls and rebuffed the arms control demands by referring them to our staffs for further study.
The atmosphere brightened when we moved on to economics. I described the economics package as cooperation, not assistance, then asked Lloyd Bentsen to outline the proposals we would make to the G-7 in Tokyo. Yeltsin became alarmed when he realized that we couldnt get him any money before the April 25 referendum. Though I couldnt give Boris the $500 million check he wanted, at the press conference following our final session I made it plain that a lot of money was coming, because the United States supported Russias democracy, its reforms, and its leader.
I left Vancouver with more confidence in Yeltsin and a better understanding of the magnitude of his challenges and his visceral determination to overcome them. And I liked him. He was a big bear of a man, full of apparent contradictions. He had grown up in primitive87 conditions that made my childhood look like a Rockefellers, and he could be crude, but he had a fine mind capable of grasping the subtleties88 of a situation. He would attack one minute and embrace the next. He seemed by turns coldly calculating and genuinely emotional, petty and generous, mad at the world and full of fun. Once when we were walking through my hotel together, a Russian journalist asked him if he was happy with our meeting. He responded quickly, Happy? One cannot be happy outside the presence of a beautiful woman. But I am satisfied. As everyone knows, Yeltsin had a fondness for vodka, but, by and large, in all our dealings he was alert, well prepared, and effective in representing his country. Compared with the realistic alternatives, Russia was lucky to have him at the helm. He loved his country, loathed90 communism, and wanted Russia to be both great and good. Whenever anyone made a snide remark about Yeltsins drinking, I was reminded of what Lincoln allegedly said when Washington snobs91 made the same criticism of General Grant, by far his most aggressive and successful commander in the Civil War: Find out what he drinks, and give it to the other generals.
When I got back to Washington, I increased the aid package again, proposing $2.5 billion for all the former Soviet states, with two-thirds going to Russia. On April 25, a large majority of Russian voters supported Yeltsin, his policies, and his desire for a new Duma. After a little more than one hundred days in office, we had made great strides in bolstering92 Yeltsin and Russian democracy. Unfortunately, the same could not be said about our efforts to end the slaughter93 and ethnic cleansing94 in Bosnia.
In 1989, as the Soviet Union crumbled95 and communisms demise96 in Europe accelerated, the question of what political philosophy would replace it was being answered in different ways in different countries. The westernmost part of the former Soviet empire plainly preferred democracy, a cause championed for decades by immigrants to the United States from Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the Baltic states. In Russia, Yeltsin and other democrats97 were fighting a rear-guard action against Communists and ultra-nationalists. In Yugoslavia, as the nation struggled to reconcile the competing claims of its ethnic and religious constituencies, Serbian nationalism prevailed over democracy under the leadership of the countrys dominant98 political figure, Slobodan Milosevic.
By 1991, Yugoslavias westernmost provinces, Slovenia and Croatia, both predominantly Catholic, had declared independence from Yugoslavia. Fighting then broke out between Serbia and Croatia, and spilled over into Bosnia, the most ethnically99 diverse province of Yugoslavia, where Muslims constituted about 45 percent of the population, Serbs were just over 30 percent, and Croatians about 17 percent. The so-called ethnic differences in Bosnia were really political and religious. Bosnia had been the meeting place of three imperial expansions: the Catholic Holy Roman Empire from the west, the Orthodox Christian100 movement from the east, and the Muslim Ottoman Empire from the south. In 1991, the Bosnians were governed by a coalition101 of national unity102 headed by the leading Muslim politician, Alija Izetbegovic, and including the militant103 Serbian nationalist leader Radovan Karadzic, a Sarajevo psychiatrist104.
At first Izetbegovic wanted Bosnia to be an autonomous105 multi-ethnic, multi-religious province of Yugoslavia. When Slovenia and Croatia were recognized by the international community as independent nations, Izetbegovic decided106 that the only way Bosnia could escape Serbian dominance was to seek independence, too. Karadzic and his allies, who were tied closely to Milosevic, had a very different agenda. They were supportive of Milosevics desire to turn as much of Yugoslavia as he could hold on to, including Bosnia, into a Greater Serbia. On March 1, 1992, a referendum was held on whether Bosnia should become an independent nation in which all citizens and groups would be treated equally. The result was an almost unanimous approval of independence, but only two-thirds of the electorate107 voted. Karadzic had ordered the Serbs to stay away from the polls and most of them did. By then, Serb paramilitary forces had begun killing108 unarmed Muslims, driving them from their homes in Serb-dominated areas in the hope of carving109 up Bosnia into ethnic enclaves, or cantons, by force. This cruel policy came to be known by a curiously110 antiseptic name: ethnic cleansing.
The European Community envoy111, Lord Carrington, tried to get the parties to agree to peacefully divide the country into ethnic regions but failed, because there was no way to do it without leaving large numbers of one group on land controlled by another, and because many Bosnians wanted to keep their country together, with the different groups living together in peace, as they had done successfully for most of the previous five hundred years.
In April 1992, the European Community recognized Bosnia as an independent state for the first time since the fifteenth century. Meanwhile, Serbian paramilitary forces continued to terrorize Muslim communities and kill civilians112, all the while using the media to convince local Serbs that it was they who were under attack from the Muslims and who had to defend themselves. On April 27, Milosevic announced a new state of Yugoslavia comprising Serbia and Montenegro. He then made a show of withdrawing his army from Bosnia, while leaving armaments, supplies, and Bosnian Serb soldiers under the leadership of his handpicked commander, Ratko Mladic. The fighting and killing raged throughout 1992, with European Community leaders struggling to contain it and the Bush administration, uncertain of what to do and unwilling113 to take on another problem in an election year, content to leave the matter in Europes hands.
To its credit, the Bush administration did urge the United Nations to impose economic sanctions on Serbia, a measure initially114 opposed by Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the French, and the British, who said they wanted to give Milosevic a chance to stop the very violence he had incited115. Finally, sanctions were imposed in late May, but with little effect, as supplies continued to reach the Serbs from friendly neighbors. The United Nations also continued to maintain the arms embargo116 against the Bosnian government that originally had been imposed against all Yugoslavia in late 1991. The problem with the embargo was that the Serbs had enough weapons and ammunition117 on hand to fight for years; therefore, the only consequence of maintaining the embargo was to make it virtually impossible for the Bosnians to defend themselves. Somehow they managed to hold out throughout 1992, acquiring some arms by capturing them from Serb forces, or in small shipments from Croatia that managed to evade118 the NATO blockade of the Croatian coast.
In the summer of 1992, as television and print media finally brought the horror of a Serb-run detention119 camp in northern Bosnia home to Europeans and Americans, I spoke out in favor of NATO air strikes with U.S. involvement. Later, when it became clear that the Serbs were engaging in the systematic120 slaughter of Bosnian Muslims, especially targeting local leaders for extermination121, I suggested lifting the arms embargo. Instead, the Europeans focused on ending the violence. British prime minister John Major attempted to get the Serbs to lift the siege of Bosnian towns and put their heavy weapons under UN supervision122. At the same time, many private and government humanitarian123 missions were launched to provide food and medicine, and the United Nations sent in eight thousand troops to protect the aid convoys124.
In late October, just before our election, Lord David Owen, the new European negotiator, and the UN negotiator, former U.S. secretary of state Cyrus Vance, put forward a proposal to turn Bosnia into a number of autonomous provinces that would be responsible for all government functions except defense and foreign affairs, which would be handled by a weak central government. The cantons were sufficiently125 numerous, with the dominant ethnic groups geographically126 divided in a way that Vance and Owen thought would make it impossible for the Serb-controlled areas to merge127 with Milosevics Yugoslavia to form a Greater Serbia. There were several problems with their plan, the two largest of which were that the sweeping128 powers of the canton governments made it clear that Muslims couldnt safely return to their homes in Serb-controlled areas, and that the vagueness of the canton boundaries invited continued Serb aggression129 intended to expand their areas, as well as the ongoing130, though less severe, conflict between Croats and Muslims.
By the time I became President, the arms embargo and European support for the Vance-Owen plan had weakened Muslim resistance to the Serbs, even as evidence of their slaughter of Muslim civilians and violations131 of human rights in detention camps continued to surface. In early February, I decided not to endorse68 the Vance-Owen plan. On the fifth, I met with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney of Canada and was pleased to hear him say he didnt like it either. A few days later, we completed a Bosnian policy review, with Warren Christopher announcing that the United States would like to negotiate a new agreement and would be willing to help enforce it.
On February 23, UN Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali agreed with me on an emergency plan to airdrop humanitarian supplies to the Bosnians. The next day, in my first meeting with John Major, he too supported the airdrops. The airdrops would help a lot of people stay alive, but would do nothing to address the causes of the crisis.
By March, we seemed to be making some progress. Economic sanctions had been strengthened and seemed to be hurting the Serbs, who were also concerned about the possibility of military action by NATO. But we were a long way from a unified132 policy. On the ninth, in my first meeting with French president Franois Mitterrand, he made clear to me that, although he had sent five thousand French troops to Bosnia as part of a UN humanitarian force to deliver aid and contain the violence, he was more sympathetic to the Serbs than I was, and less willing to see a Muslim-led unified Bosnia.
On the twenty-sixth, I met with Helmut Kohl, who deplored133 what was happening and who, like me, had favored lifting the arms embargo. But we couldnt budge134 the British and French, who felt lifting the embargo would only prolong the war and endanger the UN forces on the ground that included their troops but not ours. Izetbegovic was also in the White House on the twenty-sixth to meet with Al Gore, whose national security aide, Leon Fuerth, was responsible for our success in making the embargo more effective. Both Kohl and I told Izetbegovic we were doing our best to get the Europeans to take a stronger stand to support him. Five days later, we succeeded in getting the United Nations to extend a no fly zone over all of Bosnia, to at least deprive the Serbs of the benefit of their monopoly on airpower. It was a good thing to do, but it didnt slow the killing much.
In April, a team of U.S. military, diplomatic, and humanitarian aid personnel returned from Bosnia urging that we intervene militarily to stop the suffering. On the sixteenth, the United Nations accepted our recommendation for declaring a safe area around Srebrenica, a town in eastern Bosnia where Serb killing and ethnic cleansing had been especially outrageous135. On the twenty-second, at the dedication136 of the U.S. Holocaust137 Memorial Museum, Holocaust survivor138 Elie Wiesel publicly pleaded with me to do more to stop the violence. By the end of the month, my foreign policy team recommended that if we could not secure a Serbian cease-fire, we should lift the arms embargo against the Muslims and launch air strikes against Serb military targets. As Warren Christopher left for Europe to seek support for this policy, the Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, hoping to avoid the air strikes, finally signed the UN peace plan, even though his assembly had rejected it just six days earlier. I didnt believe for a minute that his signature signaled a change in his long-term objectives.
At the end of our first one hundred days, we were nowhere near a satisfactory solution to the Bosnian crisis. The British and French rebuffed Warren Christophers overtures139 and reaffirmed their right to take the lead in dealing89 with the situation. The problem with their position, of course, was that if the Serbs could take the economic hit of the tough sanctions, they could continue their aggressive ethnic cleansing without fear of further punishment. The Bosnian tragedy would drag on for more than two years, leaving more than 250,000 dead and 2.5 million driven from their homes, until NATO air attacks, aided by Serb military losses on the ground, led to an American diplomatic initiative that would bring the war to an end.
I had stepped into what Dick Holbrooke called the greatest collective security failure of the West since the 1930s. In his book To End a War, Holbrooke ascribes the failure to five factors: (1) a misreading of Balkan history, holding that the ethnic strife140 was too ancient and ingrained to be prevented by outsiders; (2) the apparent loss of Yugoslavias strategic importance after the end of the Cold War; (3) the triumph of nationalism over democracy as the dominant ideology141 of post-Communist Yugoslavia; (4) the reluctance142 of the Bush administration to undertake another military commitment so soon after the 1991 Iraq war; and (5) the decision of the United States to turn the issue over to Europe instead of NATO, and the confused and passive European response. To Holbrookes list I would add a sixth factor: some European leaders were not eager to have a Muslim state in the heart of the Balkans, fearing it might become a base for exporting extremism, a result that their neglect made more, not less, likely.
My own options were constrained143 by the dug-in positions I found when I took office. For example, I was reluctant to go along with Senator Dole in unilaterally lifting the arms embargo, for fear of weakening the United Nations (though we later did so in effect, by declining to enforce it). I also didnt want to divide the NATO alliance by unilaterally bombing Serb military positions, especially since there were European, but no American, soldiers on the ground with the UN mission. And I didnt want to send American troops there, putting them in harms way under a UN mandate144 I thought was bound to fail. In May 1993, we were still a long way from a solution.
At the end of the first one hundred days of a new presidency145, the press always does an assessment146 of how well the new administration is doing in keeping its campaign promises and dealing with the other challenges that have arisen. The consensus147 of the reviews was that my initial performance was mixed. On the positive side of the ledger148, I had created a National Economic Council in the White House and put together an ambitious economic program to reverse twelve years of trickle-down economics, and it was making progress in the Congress. I had signed the family leave law, and the motor voter law to make voter registration149 easier, and had reversed the Reagan-Bush abortion150 policies, including the ban on fetal-tissue research and the gag rule. I had reduced the size of the White House staff, despite its increasing workload151; for example, we received more mail in the first three and a half months than had come to the White House in all of 1992. I had also ordered a reduction of 100,000 in total federal employment, and put Vice President Gore in charge of finding new savings152 and better ways to serve the public with a reinventing government initiative whose considerable results would eventually prove the skeptics wrong. I had sent legislation to Congress to create my national service program, to double the Earned Income Tax Credit and create empowerment zones in poor communities, and to dramatically cut the cost of college loans, saving billions of dollars for both students and taxpayers153. I had put health-care reform on a fast track and had taken strong action to strengthen democracy and reform in Russia. And I was blessed with a hardworking and able staff and cabinet who, apart from the leaks, worked well together, without the backbiting154 and infighting that had characterized many previous administrations. After a slow start, I had filled more required presidential appointments in the first hundred days than President Reagan or President Bush had in the same period of time, not bad considering how cumbersome155 and overly intrusive156 the whole appointments process had become. At one point, Senator Alan Simpson, the witty157 Republican whip from Wyoming, joked to me that the process was so overdone158 that he wouldnt even want to have dinner with someone who could be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
On the negative side, I had temporarily dropped the middle-class tax cut in the face of the growing deficit159; lost the stimulus160 program to a Republican filibuster161; maintained the Bush policy of forcibly returning Haitian refugees, though we were taking in more Haitians by other means; lost the gays-in-the-military fight; delayed presenting the health-care plan beyond my hundred-day goal; mishandled at least the public part of the Waco raid; and failed to convince Europe to join with the United States in taking a stronger stand in Bosnia, although we had increased humanitarian aid, strengthened sanctions against Serbia, and created an enforceable no-fly zone.
One reason my scorecard was mixed was that I was trying to do so much in the face of determined162 Republican opposition and mixed feelings among the American people about how much government could or should do. After all, the people had been told for twelve years that government was the source of all our problems, and was so incompetent163 it couldnt organize a two-car parade. Clearly, I had overestimated164 how much I could do in a hurry. The country had been going in one direction for more than a decade, living with wedge politics, reassuring165 bromides about how great we were, and the illusory, though fleeting166, comforts of spending more and taxing less today and ignoring the consequences for tomorrow. It was going to take more than a hundred days to turn things around.
In addition to the pace of change, I may have overestimated the amount of change I could achieve, as well as how much of it the American people could digest. In one posthundred-days analysis, a Vanderbilt University political scientist, Erwin Hargrove, observed, I wonder whether the president isnt spreading himself too thin. He was probably right, but there was so much to do, and I didnt stop trying to do it all at once until the voters hit me between the eyes with a two-by-four in the 1994 midterm elections. I had let my sense of urgency blot167 out the memory of another of my laws of politics: Everyone is for change in general, but against it in particular, when they themselves have to change.
The public struggles of the first hundred days didnt occur in a vacuum; at the same time, my family was adjusting to a dramatic change in our way of life and dealing with the loss of Hillarys dad. I loved being President and Hillary was deeply committed to her health-care work. Chelsea liked her school and was making new friends. We enjoyed living in the White House, hosting the social events, and having our friends stay with us.
The White House staff was getting used to a first family that kept longer, and later, hours. Though I came to rely on them and greatly value their service, it took me a while to get used to all the help I had in the White House. As governor, Id lived in a mansion168 with a fine staff, and had been driven everywhere by the state police security detail. But on weekends, Hillary and I usually cooked for ourselves, and I drove the car to church on Sundays. Now I had valets who laid my clothes out every morning, packed for my trips, and went along to unpack169 and steam the wrinkles out; butlers who stayed late, came early, and worked weekends, serving me food and bringing me diet drinks and coffee; navy stewards170 who performed those same functions when I was in the Oval Office and traveling; a kitchen staff who prepared food for us even on weekends; ushers171 to take me up and down in the elevator and bring me papers to sign and memos172 to read at all hours; round-the-clock medical care; and the Secret Service, who wouldnt even let me ride in the front seat, much less drive.
One of the things I liked best about living in the White House was the fresh flowers that filled the residence and office spaces. The White House always had beautifully arranged flowers. Its one of the things I would miss most after I left.
When we moved in, Hillary redid the little kitchen so that we could eat dinner there at night when it was just the three of us. The upstairs dining room was beautiful, but too big and formal for our taste unless we had guests. Hillary also fixed173 up the solarium on the third floor, a bright room that leads out to a balcony and the White House roof. We turned it into a family room. Whenever we had relatives or friends staying with us, we always gravitated to the solarium, to talk, watch TV, and play cards or board games. I became addicted174 to Master Boggle and a game called UpWords; its basically a three-dimensional Scrabble game in which you get more points not by using odd letters or landing on certain spaces, but by building words upon words. I tried to get my family and friends into UpWords, succeeding with some more than others. My brother-in-law Hugh played countless175 games of UpWords with me, and Roger liked it. But Hillary, Tony, and Chelsea preferred our old standby, pinochle. I continued to play hearts with my staff and we all got hooked on a new card game that Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw taught us when they were visiting. It had a perfect name for Washington political life: Oh Hell!
The Secret Service had been with me since the New Hampshire primary, but once I got into the White House, I presented a challenge to them with my morning jogs. I had several jogging routes. Sometimes I drove out to Haines Point, which had a three-mile route around a public golf course. It was flat, but could be tough in the winter when the winds off the Potomac were strong. From time to time I also ran at Fort McNair, which has an oval route on the grounds of the National Defense University. My favorite jog by far was just to run out the Southwest Gate of the White House to the Mall, then up to the Lincoln Memorial, back down to the Capitol, and home. I met a lot of interesting people on those runs, and never tired of running through American history. When the Secret Service finally asked me to stop because of security concerns, I did, but I missed it. To me, these public runs were a way to keep in touch with the world beyond the White House. To them, with the memory of John Hinckleys assassination176 attempt on President Reagan never far from their minds and with more knowledge than I had of the hate mail I was getting, my contacts with the public were a worrisome risk to be managed.
Al Gore helped me a lot in the early days, encouraging me to keep making hard decisions and put them behind me, and giving me a continuing crash course in how Washington works. Part of our regular routine was having lunch alone in my private dining room once a week. We took turns saying grace, then proceeded to talk about everything from our families to sports, books, and movies to the latest items on his agenda or mine. We kept our lunch schedule up for eight years, except when one of us was gone for several days at a stretch. Though we had a lot in common, we were very different, and the lunches kept us closer than we otherwise would have been in the Washington pressure cooker, and eased my adjustment to my new life.
All things considered, I felt pretty good, personally and politically, about the first one hundred days. Still, I was under a lot of stress. So was Hillary. For all our excitement and commitment, we were tired going in, not having taken any real time off after the election. Then we were denied the honeymoon177 traditionally given new Presidents, partly because of the way the gays-in-the military issue surfaced early, perhaps because we made the press angry by restricting access to the West Wing. Hillarys fathers death was a painful loss to her. I missed Hugh, too, and for a while, it was harder for both of us to operate at the top of our games. Though we very much enjoyed the work, the physical and emotional toll178 of the first hundred days was considerable.
收听单词发音 |
1
erasing
|
|
| v.擦掉( erase的现在分词 )；抹去；清除 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
rife
|
|
| adj.(指坏事情)充斥的，流行的，普遍的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
chaos
|
|
| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
advisor
|
|
| n.顾问，指导老师，劝告者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
wont
|
|
| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
kennel
|
|
| n.狗舍，狗窝 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
growling
|
|
| n.吠声, 咆哮声 v.怒吠, 咆哮, 吼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
Soviet
|
|
| adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
collapse
|
|
| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
pact
|
|
| n.合同，条约，公约，协定 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
prospect
|
|
| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
democrat
|
|
| n.民主主义者，民主人士；民主党党员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
ethnic
|
|
| adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
chancellor
|
|
| n.(英)大臣；法官；(德、奥)总理；大学校长 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
assertive
|
|
| adj.果断的，自信的，有冲劲的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
prodding
|
|
| v.刺，戳( prod的现在分词 )；刺激；促使；（用手指或尖物）戳 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
advisors
|
|
| n.顾问，劝告者( advisor的名词复数 )；（指导大学新生学科问题等的）指导教授 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
coup
|
|
| n.政变；突然而成功的行动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
opposition
|
|
| n.反对，敌对 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
crumbling
|
|
| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
conspirators
|
|
| n.共谋者，阴谋家( conspirator的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
reactionaries
|
|
| n.反动分子，反动派( reactionary的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
clarion
|
|
| n.尖音小号声；尖音小号 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
reactionary
|
|
| n.反动者，反动主义者；adj.反动的，反动主义的，反对改革的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
loomed
|
|
| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
remains
|
|
| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
barons
|
|
| 男爵( baron的名词复数 )； 巨头； 大王； 大亨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
tentacles
|
|
| n.触手( tentacle的名词复数 )；触角；触须；触毛 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
averse
|
|
| adj.厌恶的；反对的，不乐意的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
alligators
|
|
| n.短吻鳄( alligator的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
ardent
|
|
| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
vice
|
|
| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
Oxford
|
|
| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
memoirs
|
|
| n.回忆录；回忆录传( mem,自oir的名词复数) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
analytical
|
|
| adj.分析的；用分析法的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
judgment
|
|
| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
hierarchy
|
|
| n.等级制度；统治集团，领导层 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
blessing
|
|
| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
spoke
|
|
| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
copious
|
|
| adj.丰富的，大量的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
participation
|
|
| n.参与，参加，分享 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
invaluable
|
|
| adj.无价的，非常宝贵的，极为贵重的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
odyssey
|
|
| n.长途冒险旅行；一连串的冒险 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
remarkable
|
|
| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
genre
|
|
| n.(文学、艺术等的)类型，体裁，风格 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
reconstructions
|
|
| 重建( reconstruction的名词复数 )； 再现； 重建物； 复原物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
versus
|
|
| prep.以…为对手，对；与…相比之下 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
deteriorating
|
|
| 恶化，变坏( deteriorate的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
imperative
|
|
| n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
averting
|
|
| 防止，避免( avert的现在分词 )； 转移 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
renaissance
|
|
| n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
full-time
|
|
| adj.满工作日的或工作周的，全时间的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
defensive
|
|
| adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
solidify
|
|
| v.(使)凝固，(使)固化，(使)团结 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
treasury
|
|
| n.宝库；国库，金库；文库 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
endorsing
|
|
| v.赞同( endorse的现在分词 )；在（尤指支票的）背面签字；在（文件的）背面写评论；在广告上说本人使用并赞同某产品 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
gut
|
|
| n.[pl.]胆量；内脏；adj.本能的；vt.取出内脏 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
bolstered
|
|
| v.支持( bolster的过去式和过去分词 )；支撑；给予必要的支持；援助 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
stabilize
|
|
| vt.（使）稳定，使稳固，使稳定平衡；vi.稳定 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
unpaid
|
|
| adj.未付款的，无报酬的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
dismantling
|
|
| （枪支）分解 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
enacted
|
|
| 制定（法律），通过（法案）( enact的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
outlets
|
|
| n.出口( outlet的名词复数 )；经销店；插座；廉价经销店 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
labor
|
|
| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
allocated
|
|
| adj. 分配的 动词allocate的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
defense
|
|
| n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
convened
|
|
| 召开( convene的过去式 )； 召集； （为正式会议而）聚集； 集合 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
endorse
|
|
| vt.(支票、汇票等)背书，背署；批注；同意 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
endorsed
|
|
| vt.& vi.endorse的过去式或过去分词形式v.赞同( endorse的过去式和过去分词 )；在（尤指支票的）背面签字；在（文件的）背面写评论；在广告上说本人使用并赞同某产品 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
dole
|
|
| n.救济，（失业）救济金；vt.（out）发放，发给 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
foul
|
|
| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
mightily
|
|
| ad.强烈地；非常地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
passionately
|
|
| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
helping
|
|
| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
abruptly
|
|
| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
repeal
|
|
| n.废止，撤消；v.废止，撤消 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
amendment
|
|
| n.改正，修正，改善，修正案 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
symbolic
|
|
| adj.象征性的，符号的，象征主义的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
expend
|
|
| vt.花费，消费，消耗 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
harangue
|
|
| n.慷慨冗长的训话，言辞激烈的讲话 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
impeach
|
|
| v.弹劾；检举 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
bombastic
|
|
| adj.夸夸其谈的，言过其实的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
posturing
|
|
| 做出某种姿势( posture的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
gore
|
|
| n.凝血，血污；v.（动物）用角撞伤，用牙刺破；缝以补裆；顶 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
contentious
|
|
| adj.好辩的，善争吵的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
adversaries
|
|
| n.对手，敌手( adversary的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
87
primitive
|
|
| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
subtleties
|
|
| 细微( subtlety的名词复数 )； 精细； 巧妙； 细微的差别等 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
89
dealing
|
|
| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
90
loathed
|
|
| v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的过去式和过去分词 )；极不喜欢 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
91
snobs
|
|
| （谄上傲下的）势利小人( snob的名词复数 )； 自高自大者，自命不凡者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
92
bolstering
|
|
| v.支持( bolster的现在分词 )；支撑；给予必要的支持；援助 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
93
slaughter
|
|
| n.屠杀，屠宰；vt.屠杀，宰杀 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
94
cleansing
|
|
| n. 净化(垃圾) adj. 清洁用的 动词cleanse的现在分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
95
crumbled
|
|
| （把…）弄碎， （使）碎成细屑( crumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 衰落； 坍塌； 损坏 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
96
demise
|
|
| n.死亡；v.让渡，遗赠，转让 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
97
democrats
|
|
| n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
98
dominant
|
|
| adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
99
ethnically
|
|
| adv.人种上，民族上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
100
Christian
|
|
| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
101
coalition
|
|
| n.结合体，同盟，结合，联合 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
102
unity
|
|
| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
103
militant
|
|
| adj.激进的，好斗的；n.激进分子，斗士 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
104
psychiatrist
|
|
| n.精神病专家；精神病医师 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
105
autonomous
|
|
| adj.自治的；独立的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
106
decided
|
|
| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
107
electorate
|
|
| n.全体选民；选区 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
108
killing
|
|
| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
109
carving
|
|
| n.雕刻品，雕花 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
110
curiously
|
|
| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
111
envoy
|
|
| n.使节，使者，代表，公使 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
112
civilians
|
|
| 平民，百姓( civilian的名词复数 )； 老百姓 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
113
unwilling
|
|
| adj.不情愿的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
114
initially
|
|
| adv.最初，开始 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
115
incited
|
|
| 刺激，激励，煽动( incite的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
116
embargo
|
|
| n.禁运（令）；vt.对...实行禁运，禁止（通商） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
117
ammunition
|
|
| n.军火，弹药 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
118
evade
|
|
| vt.逃避，回避；避开，躲避 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
119
detention
|
|
| n.滞留，停留；拘留，扣留；(教育)留下 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
120
systematic
|
|
| adj.有系统的，有计划的，有方法的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
121
extermination
|
|
| n.消灭，根绝 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
122
supervision
|
|
| n.监督，管理 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
123
humanitarian
|
|
| n.人道主义者，博爱者，基督凡人论者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
124
convoys
|
|
| n.（有护航的）船队( convoy的名词复数 )；车队；护航（队）；护送队 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
125
sufficiently
|
|
| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
126
geographically
|
|
| adv.地理学上，在地理上，地理方面 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
127
merge
|
|
| v.(使)结合，(使)合并，(使)合为一体 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
128
sweeping
|
|
| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
129
aggression
|
|
| n.进攻，侵略，侵犯，侵害 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
130
ongoing
|
|
| adj.进行中的，前进的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
131
violations
|
|
| 违反( violation的名词复数 )； 冒犯； 违反（行为、事例）； 强奸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
132
unified
|
|
| (unify 的过去式和过去分词)； 统一的； 统一标准的； 一元化的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
133
deplored
|
|
| v.悲叹，痛惜，强烈反对( deplore的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
134
budge
|
|
| v.移动一点儿；改变立场 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
135
outrageous
|
|
| adj.无理的，令人不能容忍的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
136
dedication
|
|
| n.奉献，献身，致力，题献，献辞 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
137
holocaust
|
|
| n.大破坏；大屠杀 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
138
survivor
|
|
| n.生存者，残存者，幸存者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
139
overtures
|
|
| n.主动的表示，提议；（向某人做出的）友好表示、姿态或提议( overture的名词复数 )；（歌剧、芭蕾舞、音乐剧等的）序曲，前奏曲 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
140
strife
|
|
| n.争吵，冲突，倾轧，竞争 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
141
ideology
|
|
| n.意识形态，(政治或社会的)思想意识 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
142
reluctance
|
|
| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
143
constrained
|
|
| adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
144
mandate
|
|
| n.托管地；命令，指示 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
145
presidency
|
|
| n.总统(校长，总经理)的职位(任期) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
146
assessment
|
|
| n.评价；评估；对财产的估价，被估定的金额 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
147
consensus
|
|
| n.(意见等的)一致，一致同意，共识 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
148
ledger
|
|
| n.总帐，分类帐；帐簿 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
149
registration
|
|
| n.登记，注册，挂号 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
150
abortion
|
|
| n.流产，堕胎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
151
workload
|
|
| n.作业量，工作量 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
152
savings
|
|
| n.存款，储蓄 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
153
taxpayers
|
|
| 纳税人，纳税的机构( taxpayer的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
154
backbiting
|
|
| 背后诽谤 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
155
cumbersome
|
|
| adj.笨重的，不便携带的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
156
intrusive
|
|
| adj.打搅的；侵扰的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
157
witty
|
|
| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
158
overdone
|
|
| v.做得过分( overdo的过去分词 )；太夸张；把…煮得太久；（工作等）过度 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
159
deficit
|
|
| n.亏空，亏损；赤字，逆差 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
160
stimulus
|
|
| n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
161
filibuster
|
|
| n.妨碍议事，阻挠；v.阻挠 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
162
determined
|
|
| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
163
incompetent
|
|
| adj.无能力的，不能胜任的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
164
overestimated
|
|
| 对（数量）估计过高，对…作过高的评价( overestimate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
165
reassuring
|
|
| a.使人消除恐惧和疑虑的，使人放心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
166
fleeting
|
|
| adj.短暂的，飞逝的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
167
blot
|
|
| vt.弄脏（用吸墨纸）吸干；n.污点，污渍 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
168
mansion
|
|
| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
169
unpack
|
|
| vt.打开包裹（或行李），卸货 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
170
stewards
|
|
| （轮船、飞机等的）乘务员( steward的名词复数 )； （俱乐部、旅馆、工会等的）管理员； （大型活动的）组织者； （私人家中的）管家 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
171
ushers
|
|
| n.引座员( usher的名词复数 )；招待员；门房；助理教员v.引，领，陪同( usher的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
172
memos
|
|
| n.备忘录( memo的名词复数 )；（美）内部通知 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
173
fixed
|
|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
174
addicted
|
|
| adj.沉溺于....的，对...上瘾的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
175
countless
|
|
| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
176
assassination
|
|
| n.暗杀；暗杀事件 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
177
honeymoon
|
|
| n.蜜月（假期）；vi.度蜜月 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
178
toll
|
|
| n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |