They whispered to each other and clearly didn't know what to make of her contradictory actions.

White House officials say that even seemingly contradictory actions may in fact be serving the same goal.

But other experts point out that there is a unifying impulse behind the leaders' seemingly contradictory actions: to maintain the power of the Communist Party.

Stephens then explains Christmas's subsequent and seemingly contradictory actions as a conflict between his black and his white blood.

Such contradictory actions by the Government abound and the impression is that different groups and institutions are simultaneously pursuing different goals.

But budget pressures, delicate trade negotiations and proliferating alliances between American and foreign manufacturers have spawned a series of apparently contradictory actions.

Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military ruler, has a history of strong declarations, followed by weak and contradictory actions.

While Frost wrote many post-war articles attempting to explain his contradictory actions during the civil war, his memoirs do not address the Civil War period.

"It's extraordinarily frustrating, because we're being forced to take contradictory actions to the federal government," said Angela Monson, a Democratic state senator from Oklahoma who is president of the national conference.

Carter came to office determined to improve relations with Western Europe (and Japan) but his tendency towards indecision and contradictory actions soon had its effect on NATO.

Perhaps one way to reconcile these seemingly contradictory actions is to understand what Ron Guidry, a former Yankees captain himself, means by a captain's needing to read the personality of each player.

While Kirk and Spock try to comprehend the natives' contradictory actions, Kor retaliates for the escape by ordering the execution of two hundred Organians by Klingon phaser.

The complicated and contradictory actions came after years of scientific study and angry political struggles in the Pacific Northwest over the balance between economic development and the preservation of rare species on Federal land.

Last fall Mr. Dinkins disclosed his vaunted anti-crime strategy, which was striking in its scope, but was immediately subsumed by his administration's seemingly contradictory actions that week - like raising teacher salaries and then threatening lay offs.

While his attitude toward Communism was always quick and uncompromising, irrespective of the risks to himself and others, his attitude toward the Ustashe's crimes against humanity was vitiated by repeated compromises and contradictory actions.

George II attempted to make use of Malik Shah's favor to bend Aghsartan I, the recalcitrant king of Kakheti in eastern Georgia, into submission, but failed to achieve any result due largely to his contradictory actions.

They were frequently puzzled by the behavior of Derec and Ariel (and, for that matter, the insanely contradictory actions of Avery), and had trouble convincing themselves to accept these particular humans as representative of the highest order of being in the universe.

In a series of contradictory actions that bear the hallmark of panic, Gongsun Yuan memorialised the Wei court in hope of getting a pardon on one hand, while formally declaring independence on the other by assuming the title King of Yan.

In this capital, where 4 percent of all adults are believed to be infected with the AIDS virus, the seemingly contradictory actions by local authorities in December reflected attitudes common in much of Africa toward AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

While some journalists criticized the contradictory actions, others pointed out that the opposite investment decisions undertaken by the underwriting side and the trading side of the bank were normal and in line with regulations regarding Chinese walls, and in fact critics had demanded increased independence between underwriting and trading.

President Bush's seemingly contradictory actions of the last 48 hours - first assailing Congress as "a privileged class of rulers" answerable to no one, then closing a deal with Congress on a new civil rights bill - were aimed at dampening the volatile political consequences of racial divisiveness and de-emphasizing the stalled economy.