vicissitudes, sabotage, SABOTEUR, rescind, A Nation of Spy-Catchers: Fear of Saboteurs Has Ukrainians on Edge

A Nation of Spy-Catchers: Fear of Saboteurs Has Ukrainians on Edge

"A chance to rehabilitate yourself, they had told him. A chance to fulfill your obligations to the Fatherland."
--from SABOTEURS: The Nazi Raid on America by Michael Dobbs

In 1942, Hitler's Nazi regime trained eight operatives for a mission to infiltrate America and do devastating damage to its infrastructure. It was a plot that proved historically remarkable for two reasons: the surprising extent of its success and the astounding nature of its failure. Soon after two U-Boats⋯⋯

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To the Editor:
Your article reminded me of a sign taped to the door to the classics department in the early 1960s at Yale, where I majored in Latin: “Studying the classics teaches you the values you need to live without the money you give up because you studied the classics.”
At age 66, after being battered by the storms and vicissitudes of life that most of us experience, I find that those values have stood me in good stead. Not to mention the habits of perseverance and attention to detail I learned by painstakingly parsing Horace or Thucydides in the original.
Peter Yerkes


sabotage
verb [T]
1 to damage or destroy equipment, weapons or buildings in order to prevent the success of an enemy or competitor:
The rebels had tried to sabotage the oil pipeline.

2 to intentionally prevent the success of a plan or action:
This was a deliberate attempt to sabotage the ceasefire.

sabotage
noun [U]
They began a campaign of industrial and economic sabotage.

saboteur
noun [C]
a person who sabotages something rescind 
verb [T] FORMAL
to make a law, agreement, order or decision no longer have any (legal) power:
The policy of charging air travellers for vegetarian meals proved unpopular and has already been rescinded.

vicissitudes 
plural noun FORMAL
changes which happen at different times during the life or development of someone or something, especially those which result in conditions being worse:
You could say that losing your job is just one of the vicissitudes of life.