In the year 1974, the United States of America was in crisis. We had lost an ill-conceived and disastrously mismanaged war in Vietnam and were about to withdraw in defeat. Following the Yom Kippur War, the Arab oil-producing states initiated an embargo on oil shipments to the U.S., Western Europe, and Japan, in retaliation for their support of Israel, and this triggered an energy crisis in most of the industrialized world. Economic growth in the U.S. slowed to near zero. In August of 1974, Richard Nixon would become the first U.S. president to resign in disgrace, and his successor Gerald ...