POLITICAL DICTIONARY

quid pro quo

a Latin phrase meaning one thing for another; tit-for-tat. For example, during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, President John Kennedy gave a personal (although not official) pledge that the crisis could be defused by a quid pro quo: If the Russians removed their missiles from Cuba, the U.S. would within a few months remove its own missiles from Turkey.

quisling

a traitor or collaborator, after Vidkun Quisling, a Norwegian who was a Nazi sympathizer and revealed state secrets about Norwegian defenses to German agents in 1940, six days before the German occupation of Norway began in World War II. Quisling served as a puppet prime minster during the war; he was executed in 1945.

quorum

the number of members of a legislature, or of any organization, that have to be present before official business may be conducted.