1979 was not a watershed year for the Jimmy Carter Presidency. A lot was going wrong and a lot that had gone right just the year prior was in danger of sliding off the rails.

Iran was proving to be a bigger problem than originally thought with signals the Soviet Union were contemplating an overture or two towards Tehran. Our presence in the world was not on the best of terms. Embassy's in Iran and Afghanistan were attacked. Our Middle East policy, pointed with such optimism and accomplishment via the Camp David Peace Accords only a year earlier, was in danger of being derailed. The SALT II Treaty with the Soviet Union was on shaky ground if the Senate had anything to say about it and our agreement with The People's Republic Of China at the cost of our relationship with Taiwan had many in and out of government wondering if damage control would do any good.

And so Walter Cronkite, the Most Trusted Man In America, weighed in on the issue of our Foreign Policy and where we stood in the midst of all this. Here is his commentary for February 20, 1979 as broadcast by CBS Radio.

I don't think a week has gone by in history without some crisis developing, or some settlement reached with regards to the Middle East.

On March 12th in 1979 talks were going on in Israel between Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter, with an emergency session being held on this day. Speculation among Middle East watchers was President Carter to spend an extra day trying to hammer something out.

And to go along with the negotiations were reports of continued violence in the West Bank, anti-Carter riots around Jerusalem and a general feeling of tension while some sort of peace process was being arrived at.

And if that weren't enough, talk on Capitol Hill centered around what was being described as a disastrous Energy policy and a looming crisis by way of Arab Oil. Only time would tell on that one.

Meanwhile, news from overseas, aside from the Peace talks, centered around continued Rhodesian attacks on rebel bases in Zimbabwe and the Women of Tehran turning out en masse to protest the latest edicts from the Ayatollah regime regarding a severe curtailing of civil rights for women and a reintroduction of the Chador as required apparel for all Iranian Women.

And when the talk wasn't focused on the potential energy crisis or the Middle East, Capitol Hill was focusing on calls for a Constitutional Amendment to the Balanced Budget, with John Stennis leading the charge. And if Jimmy Carter didn't have enough trouble, Republican Presidential hopefuls Howard Baker and Bob Dole were busy making political hay from calls for an investigation of the Carter Family Peanut business based on an FBI investigation that alleged Prodigal Brother Billy was busy cooking books at the warehouse.

And so spiraled this March 12th in 1979 as reported on CBS Radio via their 8:00 am-9:00 am (PST) network news and The World Tonight.

And how is this March 7th different from other March 7th's?

Well . . .

On March 7th 1978, news from Tel-Aviv reported a sharp divide, bordering on revolt among Israeli Cabinet Ministers over the matter of Israeli settlements being built on disputed Arab territories. Moderates, headed up by Ezer Weizmann wanted the settlement building to stop. Hawks, headed up by Ariel Sharon wanted it to continue and Prime Minister Begin was stuck in the middle. Meanwhile, in Cairo - Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was looking to the U.S. for some leadership in the area of Peace talks with Israel. As always, the Middle-East was a hotbed of activity.

Back in the States, a settlement of another kind was being sought after. This one having to do with the Coal Miner's Strike, which was having a devastating impact on the Mid-West. President Carter was invoking Taft-Hartley legislation and the Coal Miners were hearing none of it. Meanwhile, the loss of coal production meant severe cutbacks throughout Indiana, Ohio and several other states with electrical cutbacks as much as 50%.

On Capitol Hill, debate was continuing regarding the Panama Canal Treaty with no eye on an actual vote until "maybe May 1st". Jesse Helms introduced an amendment to keep a U.S. Radio facility up and running in the Canal Zone to be used in tracking ships, particularly those of Soviet lineage.

Elsewhere - Continuing border clashes between Rhodesia and Zambia were getting the attention of other African nations who wanted to reach some settlement in the dispute, preferably without Ian Smith involved. Kind of tough since, even though Smith headed up the minority government of Rhodesia, he was still heading up the government.

And Kuwait's Oil Minister was calling for a substantial boost in oil prices, since the U.S. dollar was sinking slowly in markets around the world, and Kuwait was claiming losses of $1million a day as the result. Gee.

And publisher Larry Flynt was recovering from surgery the day following a shooting of him and his attorney by "unknown" assailant(s).

And that's what this particular slice of reality sounded like for March 7, 1978 as reported by Dallas Townsend on The CBS World News Roundup.

In the odd event you're reading this in an isolation chamber, today would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday. Those of us who landed smack in the middle of our teenage years just as The Beatles arrived, have vivid memories of John's outspoken nature and so it's no accident, since this is mostly a political blog the sister site of a bigger political blog and dealing primarily with situations from the past and how they relate to the attitude of our current state of affairs, that I ran across this excerpt of an interview with John Lennon recorded just before his assassination in 1980, when Reagan had just won the election. Among a vast range of subjects John talked about, his take on the then-current state of political affairs is quite interesting and certainly fuels speculation on how he would have felt about our current situation.

John Lennon: “I don’t think politics is the only answer, you see. I think this idea that we elect these leaders and then expect them to do miracles for us. Kennedy is a big dream for everybody because he didn’t live to fulfill or let us down. And it’s not to negate what Kennedy was and what he means to people. But the reality is, had he lived, how do you know how well he would’ve done at the time, right? Or how the war would have gone and how everything would have gone. So investing leaders with supernatural powers, whether they be pop starts, politicians or movie stars or football heroes, it don’t work. It just doesn’t work. Because we put them up on the pedestal and immediately want to knock them off.”

And John certainly knew a thing or two about pedestals.

And we're still good at constructing pedestals. It's as American as Apple pie.

And seventy years ago today . . . .