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- <text id=89TT0443>
- <title>
- Feb. 13, 1989: Grapevine
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Feb. 13, 1989 James Baker:The Velvet Hammer
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 38
- Grapevine
- </hdr><body>
- <p> SUNUNUED! The reputation for stubbornness and impatience
- that John Sununu earned as a three-term New Hampshire Governor
- has followed him in his new post as White House chief of staff.
- Several senior staffers have griped about "getting Sununued."
- When interviewing prospective aides, Sununu often warned them
- that the job they sought was either having its salary slashed,
- its title diminished, or its access to the President virtually
- eliminated -- take it or leave it. Not surprisingly, many of
- Sununu's first picks chose to leave it.
- </p>
- <p> RIP VAN BUSH. In a joke making the rounds in Washington,
- George Bush gets bonked on the head and lapses into a coma. He
- wakes up in 1992 to find Budget Director Richard Darman at his
- bedside. "Golly, Dick," says Bush, "how are things?" Replies
- Darman: "In the three years you've been asleep we've got
- inflation down to 1%, the GNP is growing at a 4% clip, and
- we're actually running a budget surplus." Bush: "Wow. Only 1%
- inflation. What does a cup of coffee cost now?" Darman: "Only a
- hundred yen."
- </p>
- <p> ADIOS, TV MARTI? Fidel Castro was not amused when Congress
- appropriated $7.5 million last year for a blimp-based television
- version of Miami-based Radio Marti, which has beamed anti-Castro
- propaganda to Cuba since 1985. To show his displeasure, the
- Cuban leader blasted the airwaves two weeks ago with three
- 300-kw transmitters, disrupting U.S. radio stations as far away
- as Minnesota. The U.S. has subsequently decided to reconsider
- the whole idea.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
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