They didn't seem anxious to settle scores with Communism; instead, they eagerly joined others at the meeting in pledging unconditional loyalty to Putin.
Even as he met with the cardinals on his final day as pope, pledging "unconditional reverence and obedience" to his successor and urging the cardinals to "work like an orchestra" harmonizing for the good of the church, the discord was apparent.
All four leaders of Muslim legal schools, Imams hanbal, hannafi, shafi and maliki suffered under political authorities because they refused to pledge unconditional authority.
There are too many stories -- more than enough to justify any thinking-person's reluctance to pledge unconditional pride in the entirety our national heritage -- a heritage which includes a 1922 U.S. Senate filibuster against an anti-lynching law.
When asked about his earlier pledge of "unconditional solidarity" with the United States, Mr. Schröder said, "There is unconditional solidarity with the friend who is attacked".
Mr Obama has "refined" his pledge to hold unconditional talks with Iran.
The agreement that Kofi Annan, the UN's secretary-general, has brought back from Baghdad Iraq's written pledge to provide immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access to all suspected weapons sites demonstrated the value, as this soft-spoken man of peace put it, of "diplomacy backed up by firmness and force".
From 2 August 1934, members of the armed forces were required to pledge an oath of unconditional obedience to Hitler personally.
A strong bipartisan vote for the pending resolution will strengthen the president's hand in his efforts to get the international community to step up to the plate and deal effectively with the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and give the diplomats one last chance to secure Saddam Hussein's final unconditional surrender of those weapons as he pledged in 1991.
Which is the one potentially fatal chink in the body armor of intimacy, in the unconditional this 'n' that, in the sacred vows, the pledging of troths, in the forever anythings.
