1975: United States

Politics

Gerald Ford ended his first year in the White House with the observation, 'I think we face problems. On some we've made progress. On others, less progress.' The unexhilarating, even drab, note in that appraisal was appropriate for a year marked by stalemated relations between president and Congress, new embarrassments for federal intelligence agencies, and a lengthening list of corporate misconduct.

Still seemingly exhausted by the trials of Watergate and frustrated by hard times that would not respond to the usual pump priming, Washington's politicians produced not one major new program or policy for the nation in 1975. Most of the headlined activity in the nation's capital involved old sins newly uncovered.

Dirty laundry.

Northrop, Lockheed, Exxon, Phillips Petroleum, and a host of other multinational corporations were caught spending millions of dollars to influence politicians and would-be customers at home and abroad. The three big rent-a-car firms, Hertz, Avis, and National, were accused of price-fixing. The Bunge Corporation, one of the world's largest grain dealers, was convicted, after pleading no contest, on charges of conspiracy to steal grain. With a dozen other corporate scandals emerging in 1975 the ethics flag on Wall Street was dropped to half-staff, but Congress and the bureaucracy, although they said they were offended, made no move to increase the policing of the business world. In fact, the big talk in Washington was about the need to cut regulations. (See also TRANSPORTATION.)

It was a year when federal intelligence agencies had an awful lot of explaining to do. Congressional investigations disclosed that the FBI had committed 'more than' 238 burglaries against U.S. dissidents over a 26-year period and had kept secret files on 'about' 17 members of Congress, often with the intent to discredit them because they opposed presidential programs.

The Central Intelligence Agency was beset by a much more extensive and colorful series of disclosures. For example, for years, allegedly ending in 1973, the CIA routinely intercepted letters coming to U.S. citizens from Communist countries and opened and analyzed mail addressed to such national figures as Richard M. Nixon, then a private citizen, Senator Edward Kennedy, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Arthur F. Burns, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Senator Hubert Humphrey. Another example: A former CIA analyst charged that the U.S. Army had been caught unprepared for the Communists' Tet offensive in South Vietnam in 1968 because the CIA, with approval from high officials in the White House and State Department, had deliberately downgraded the enemy's strength so as to deceive the U.S. press and, through it, the public.