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TIME: Almanac of the 20th Century
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1970
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1994-02-27
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<text>
<title>
(1970s) Editor's Note
</title>
<history>
TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1970s Highlights
</history>
<article>
<source>Time Magazine</source>
<hdr>
Editor's Note
</hdr>
<body>
<p> The 1970s seems a period of mixed gains and losses: detente
between the U.S. and the Soviet Union set against broad Soviet
gains in the Third World; the fall of the Indochinese states to
ruthless Communist regimes v. the revival of a pragmatic,
outward-looking China; the return of several Western European
countries to democracy v. bloody tyranny and widespread torture
and human rights abuses in much of the world; peace at last
between Israel and its most powerful Arab neighbor, Egypt,
against a background of Palestinian terrorism that cost dozens
of lives and disrupted millions.
</p>
<p> For the U.S. the 1970s were a decade of diminished prestige
abroad and self-doubt at home, caused by the Vietnam debacle,
the Watergate scandal and deepening economic crisis. Yet by
1976, Americans could celebrate not only the nation's
Bicentennial but the vindication of a political system that had
survived the strains and corruption to which Watergate had
subjected it. The decade also saw the rise of the women's
movement, the first sustained efforts to clean up the
environment and humankind's furthest reach yet into the cosmos.
</p>
<p> TIME CAPSULE/THE 70s has been adapted and condensed from the
contents of TIME, The Weekly Newsmagazine. The words, except for
the connecting passages brackets [], are those of the magazine
itself. The date at the beginning of each excerpt is the issue
date of the magazine.
</p>
<p> To an editor living in the late 1980s, the 1970s is the day
before yesterday. It is extremely difficult to evaluate what
happened as recently as nine or ten years ago with the same
criteria as are used on the events of ninety or even nineteen
years ago; we simply do not yet have the perspective to judge
what was really important. At such a close remove, journalism
is more than ever the first draft of history.
</p>
<p> TIME of a decade or more ago reflected attitudes very similar
to our own, but also subtly different (viz. the treatment of
women's issues). That is why it is important to remember that
the acts of selecting the texts and writing the bridging
passages reflect the assumptions and attitudes, conscious or
unconscious, of this decade and of the editor.</p>
</body>
</article>
</text>