Back to Normalcy

For a while, as newspapers and television were given over to the final days of the campaign and analyses of results, it seemed that the only news was election news. But normalcy--or what passes for it--quickly returns. The delegates to the Paris peace talks met for the 91st time and reported no progress. Four men completed a hazardous voyage on a raft from Ecuador to Australia to prove that American Indians could have sailed across the Pacific. American B-52 bombers once again flew missions over the Ho Chi Minh Trail to stem a North Vietnamese buildup in the Demilitarized Zone. Ralph Nader was locked in another safety battle with General Motors. The WAVES got a new chief, the eighth in their history, Commander Robin Quigley. The holiday season's first gift suggestion for the patriot who has everything was marketed by a California firm: the All-American candle that when burned gives off the scent of (Right on, Mom!) apple pie. Most normal, if not atavistic, of all, the Saturday Evening Post vowed to publish again for Middle America (see THE PRESS), complete with a Norman Rockwell painting on the first cover. Once the election clamor had died, Americans returned to the triumphs and disappointments of a world in which little had changed.

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