Long in the making, the transformation was no doubt a belated response to World War II.

If that seemed like a belated response to the opposition's major themes in the campaign, Mr. Clinton clearly picked it up.

Then came the genocide in Yugoslavia, with a belated American response.

It might also have been a belated Old World response to the achievements of the New.

The swift repair could have been a belated response to your first call.

Confederate shells-a belated response to the gas barrage and trench raid-fell not far away as they went out of the front line.

It is a belated response to the widely held view that under democracy, officials have become even greedier than they were under Communism.

Yet I am still distressed at the belated and incomplete response of my government.

"I can only surmise that this is Neil Simon's belated response to the negative critical reaction," she wrote.

"It's a belated response to what's been going on in the United States."