LITMIR.BIZ

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outrage. With the Gazette out front, the press painted a tale of national disgrace. ABC’s The Iran Crisis - America Held Hostage: Day __ nightly reminded viewers of our shame and futility. Though Carter acted swiftly, freezing Iranian assets and banning oil imports, what little there was of them, the standoff continued. A backlash developed against Iranians in the U.S. A few weeks later armed fundamentalists seized Mecca’s Great Mosque, threatening our Saudi ally. As the Tehran situation dragged on, the Great Satan was looking less great all the time. Carter’s stature, rebounding with SALT II earlier in the year, was now at rock-bottom.

      Something new on the world scene, a phenomenon which would challenge the established order, roil and topple governments – terrorist strikes by nimble bands of the disaffected whose host state will not or cannot control, and at times covertly encourages for its own ends. Anarchy with deep pockets and serious firepower. But it wasn’t only the little guys acting up. The Soviets had fielded new missile programs and were rattling the nuclear weapon saber in Eastern Europe. Then in late December came Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan. Underestimating the problems involved in taming that wild and ungovernable country, the U.S. fretted that the Bear was again on the march. Russia’s daring put a spotlight on our impotence and, of course, our bitter legacy of Vietnam.

      Jimmy Carter had some answers. He canceled grain shipments to the Soviet Union. He withdrew the SALT II treaty from the Senate, though by then it was a dead letter anyway. He canceled our participation in the Moscow Summer Games and reinstated draft registration for men eighteen and over. And in a portentous act evocative of Harry Truman, he guaranteed our dependency on the Middle East for years to come by issuing what came to be known as the Carter Doctrine. “An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America and will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.” Wow.

      The USSR seemed unmoved, but reaction in this country was swift. The Democrats’ liberal wing distanced itself even further from its nominal leader. Nor could any amount of hawkishness appease the burgeoning conservative movement which now smelled blood. For me, Carter had just given up on energy self-sufficiency. “Disappointing, business as usual,” I wrote in an op ed piece which drew a flood of angry mail. Carter had rolled back oil price controls, hoping higher prices would spur exploration and boost alternative energy. Maybe, but liberals who wanted Big Oil checked at every turn abandoned him. Hit in the pocketbook, consumers were furious. A crude oil windfall profits tax lost Carter the conservatives, and Congress repealed his oil import fee. Some of Carter’s moves did work. Foreign oil consumption fell during his term, and with domestic production on the rise, oil inventories grew and natural gas was increasingly plentiful. Though we were paying more, chronic shortages seemed behind us.

      Carter’s energy program was too complex for short attention spans, though I revisited the story every month or so. People were focused on the skyrocketing cost of everything including gas. Fred’s shrinking-paycheck story was a page one mainstay, that and the impending demise of the “work hard, do well” ethic. Even Diane and I felt the pinch, especially at tax time, though we weren’t exactly hurting. And I had to admit we enjoyed seeing the paper profits as our house and condo soared in value.

      Under tremendous pressure, in April Carter and his military advisors concocted a complex plan to rescue the Tehran hostages, but an intense sandstorm grounded three of the choppers and caused the mission to be aborted. During the evacuation the force came under attack, one helicopter ended up on top of a C-130, and they both went up in flames. Eight U.S. troops were killed, several others injured, and five serviceable helicopters had to be left in the desert. Our failure was highlighted when two weeks later, a siege of the Iranian Embassy in London was decisively terminated by Margaret Thatcher’s Special Forces.

      Poor Jimmy Carter. All that worrying and all for naught. He didn’t realize that things didn’t have to be so grim. America’s best days were ahead – so said the man on horseback who was spotted riding in from the west. Ronald Reagan, left-liberal union leader turned ultra-conservative, whose political apprenticeship I had the dubious distinction of living through, upbeat television pitchman for G.E. and the free enterprise system.

      If Carter was snakebit, Reagan’s timing was exquisite. Since the Sixties the tide of conservatism had been rising. The alliance of college students and business that propelled Barry Goldwater into the sixty-four nomination had regrouped and emerged strong, organized and well-funded. From college kids (Young Americans for Freedom) to think tanks (American Enterprise Institute, Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute) to big-money donors (Coors, Mellon-Scaife) to newspapers and opinion journals (Wall Street Journal, National Review, Human Events, Commentary) and business consortia (Business Roundtable) the New Right had stood the liberal playbook on its head. Led by their intellectual pope, William F. Buckley, Jr., by the late Seventies conservatives had elbowed their way into the political mainstream. The one bright spot for Republicans in the sixty-four debacle – cracking the southern bloc over civil rights and desegregation – was not lost on them. And they had discovered targeted messages, the more divisive the better, can be very effective.

      Lulled by Watergate, under Carter Democrats became demoralized and disorganized, and the New Right pounced, seizing the opportunity they and their forebears had been seeking since the New Deal. The economy was a shambles. A two-bit country was humiliating us. People were frustrated and angry. Bright, ambitious and self-assured, conservatives had a new set of answers – actually a very old set – shove government and its irksome regulations aside. Let those who can, succeed, and in the wake of their success, even the lowly will thrive. We were ready for a change. It was time to feel good about ourselves again.

      MORE DISQUIETING RUMORS led me to sound out Alan Mauro. “You’ve come to the wrong place, son,” he said, leaning back in his chair and putting his feet on the desk. “So how’s the oilman? The patch still treating you right?”

      “It gets a little old but what doesn’t?”

      “Ain’t that the truth.” He ran his hand over his beard. “Talk about old – can you believe I’ve been writing this godforsaken column nearly twenty-five years?”

      “But it’s great. You don’t know how to write a boring word. How do you do it?”

      “Damned if I know. Actually, I do. My material writes itself. It’s all in the material.”

      “I’ve been hearing rumors about our esteemed employer. Any truth to them?”

      He motioned with his hand. I got up and shut the door. “A. we’re about to declare bankruptcy. B. we’re up for sale. Pick one. If our esteemed publisher-in-chief is to be believed, those are our choices.”

      “Nothing new there.”

      “This time they’re saying we’re out of cash. Advertising’s down, circulation’s down, TV’s eating our lunch. Why waste time on an in-depth report when a ten-second TV spot gets you everything you need?”

      “But where does TV get their news? We bake the cake, they frost it and make the sale. Why don’t we buy a station of our own?”

      “If that’s a fix it’s sure not a quick one. Besides, all anybody here knows about TV is how to knock it. Oh, I didn’t mention – our costs are through the roof too. Inflation’s killing us, like everybody else. The new gadgetry is very expensive.”

      The accounting and payroll functions had been automated nearly a year. For the last month technicians had been crawling all over the City Room, installing computers, cabinets, video monitors, laying cable, endlessly fiddling, tinkering, testing. The next two weeks we were scheduled for classes and seminars. Everyone was up in arms, of course – not enough time to do your job and now this stuff we didn’t want in the first place. Made me proud of my father, though, how far ahead of the game he had been.

      Alan was going on. “Down the road maybe it makes sense. I don’t know – here they are talking satellites and I’m still trying to figure out the bloody fax machine. Next they’ll be replacing linotype with computers, for God’s sake. Three years it’ll all come together, they say. Just in time for 1984! Won’t

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