Historians of the future, looking back on the twilight years of the twentieth century, may designate the mid-1970’s as worthy of that supreme accolade accorded only the most significant dates in history: to serve as a dividing point between chapters in their textbooks. If they do, their judgment will be based not on the Watergate scandals (they would know that Grant and Harding had occupied the White House in the past and that human frailty could occasionally tarnish even a President), or even on the bitter conflict over the “Imperial Presidency” (they would be aware that Congress and the President traditionally had vied for power and that authority had fluctuated between the two in unpredictable cycles).

Instead, those historians might recognize the mid-1970’s as a turning point in national development because suddenly, almost without warning, the American people were advised by their leaders that they must abandon a way of life to which they had been accustomed for three centuries. They were told that they could no longer squander the natural resources with which their continent was so richly endowed. Those resources, seemingly inexhaustible, were in increasingly short supply; food, energy, and raw materials were diminishing at a rate that could mean disaster for today’s generation, let alone those of the future. The “land of plenty,” Americans were told, could within a few years become a “land of want” unless they changed their life patterns drastically.

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