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.

From a special one hour Meet The Press broadcast of January 15, 1967, five newly sworn in Republican Senators Charles Percy, Howard Baker, Edward Brooke, Cliff Hansen and Mark Hatfield in discussion with the panel on a variety of subjects, but most notably the endless war in Vietnam. Typical of the line of question was whether or not bombing of North Vietnam should resume:

Howard Baker: “I think we must not discontinue bombing, on a unilateral basis. I think after all, we’re all concerned with the unpleasantness of war and the hideous aspects of the bombing of North Vietnam and the attendant, occasional civilian casualties. This is the price you pay for determination, and determination we must have in order to convince the Communists that they will not be permitted to win in their aggressive effort in Vietnam.”

Edward Brooke: “If cessation of the bombing would being about peace in Vietnam, I would favor cessation of the bombing. I don’t believe the bombings in the north have served the purpose for which they were intended. Infiltration of the North Vietnamese into South Vietnam is continuing. And obviously we have not driven the Vietcong in the North to the conference table. I think we certainly should at this time reassess the bombings, reevaluate the bombings to make a determination as to whether the advantages of bombing outweigh the disadvantages.”

Mark Hatfield: “I think we have to consider the bombing in context with our total policy and not isolate it from the rest of our actions on the diplomatic as well as on the military front. And I think when you look at the balance sheet you will find that we have not achieved a great deal of military success by the bombing program. We have alienated the rest of the world, we have not advanced our military cause, and I believe that when you look at the loss we have had in manpower and in planes, and the fact that they have hardened their position to consider, both through infiltration as Senator Brooke has said, and other actions, the bombing policy has not proved successful. So I ask the question, why continue it?”

The question of Vietnam and Foreign Policy in Southeast Asia created widespread divisions in both parties by this time, just as clearly and widespread as the divisions were in public opinion. 1967 would be the tipping point and by 1968 it was a shambles.

(1971 - the brief respite between the World's Longest Party and Our Great National Nervous Breakdown)

Hard to imagine that 1971 was a sort of resting point in our rather skewed history. At the time of course, it didn't seem that way - in 1971 Campuses were still hotbeds of disturbance, Vietnam was still grinding on, cities were falling apart. But we were optimistic all was going to be okay with the world and prosperity was just around the corner.

Sadly, no.

This documentary, part of the NBC Radio series "Second Sunday", aired in April 1971 was concerned about our place in the world. A reassessment of who we were as a society - the old "who am I, what am I doing and where am I going" mantra that was so popular during those years.

And questions are posed to a number of people - Ralph Nader, newly elected Governor Jimmy Carter, Senator Howard Baker, Gunnar Myrdal, Jean-Francois Revel, John Gardner (founder of Common Cause) and Dr. Milton Eisenhower who offers this interesting observation:

Dr. Milton Eisenhower: “We do seem to have a new kind of violence in this country, we have some people who are actively advocating revolution, which I think is relatively new in America.”

Question: Where do think this will lead? Do you think this is a self-defeating thing?

Eisenhower: “ First let me say that there are nihilists, there are revolutionaries; most of them young. Many of them, in our colleges and universities. But it’s terribly important that the American people understand that they constitute a very small minority. They make a lot of noise and I may say the mass media give them a great exposure to the American people, but they can’t be more than one, two or three percent of the total. Yes, this is something new.”

Question: “How do you answer the argument that we engage in violence in Vietnam, so violence is warranted here in America. And those who argue that the system is so rotten and has such basic defects that the system itself is not worth preserving and hence you need revolution in this country to purify the government.”

Eisenhower: “Well I think that’s a terribly specious argument. If we lived in a dictatorship, and the dictatorship had proclaimed and carried on the war, and therefore citizens could do little if anything about it, one could well argue that in these circumstances revolution, internal revolution would be the corrective measure to take. But once the people themselves have taken possession of the basic social power, which is the situation in our free democratic society, and we exercise this power through a representative form of government, then the only way, the only reasonable way to get action is to work through these political procedures. All other methods are illegitimate and are self-defeating. Margaret Chase-Smith made a speech in the Senate that was worth the attention of the American people, in which she said that, if the left-wing extremists, who are causing a good share of the trouble don’t look out, they are going to drive America to the right. The danger in America is not going too far to the left – the danger in America is going too far to the right.”

That last quote is particularly telling considering where the country would wind up in the next decade.

Of course, at the time no one suspected a thing . . . .