Watergate, Warhol and the Birth of Post-Sixties America

[David Casseres]

Having been personally involved in the anti-war movement, I disagree
strenuously.  I regard the 70's as basically a political coda to the
60's, and a rather sad attempt to reinvent and mass-market the
cultural ferment, festivities and fester that previously belonged to
an alienated subculture.

On 4/16/06, Paul Mackin <paul.mackin at verizon.net> wrote:
> Yes, the 70s were when events of lasting importance occurred.   Opec
> gasoline squeeze,  Sexual revolution, Roe/Wade. Watergate. Pynchon's
> writing coming of age.
>
> Maybe the 60s actually took place in the 70s.
>
> That or in the 50s--Brown v. Board of Education, Rosa Parks, sit-ins,
> On the Road, Howl.
>
> The 60s themselves were kind of a washout. Obviously no lasting
> lessons learned from Vietnam. The student revolution and anti-war
> demonstrations didn't do much to stop the war--the grownups got fed
> up with it of their own accord.
>
>
> On Apr 16, 2006, at 9:44 AM, Dave Monroe wrote:
>
> > The San Francisco Chronicle
> > The '70s -- America's low point
> > Reviewed by Joshua Spivak
> >
> > Sunday, April 16, 2006
> >
> > 1973 Nervous Breakdown
> >
> > Watergate, Warhol and the Birth of Post-Sixties
> > America
> >
> > By Andreas Killen
> >
> > BLOOMSBURY; 312 PAGES; $24.95
> >
> > Has America gotten over the '70s? Events from the
> > once-overlooked decade still seem to haunt the
> > country. Both the Deep Throat revelation and the
> > wiretapping controversies bring to mind Watergate. The
> > documentary "American Family" that ran in 1973 can be
> > seen as the forerunner to the current reality-TV
> > obsession. And of course plenty of people see the
> > specter of the inglorious end to Vietnam in any
> > American foreign activity.
> >
> > According to Andreas Killen's new book, "1973 Nervous
> > Breakdown: Watergate, Warhol and the Birth of
> > Post-Sixties America," the decade has had an outsize
> > impact on American culture. Killen, an assistant
> > professor of history at the City College of New York,
> > locates the unlikely year of 1973, which he refers to
> > as a low point in American history, as a watershed
> > year. Arguing that a number of current cultural trends
> > had their loci in the early 1970s, and especially in
> > 1973, Killen explores some of the bizarre and
> > sometimes overlooked events of the era: skyjackings,
> > POWs, conspiracy theorists, cults, the early
> > forerunners of reality TV and Andy Warhol's obsession
> > with celebrities. Using Nixon's paranoia and the
> > growing Watergate scandal as a thread throughout the
> > year, Killen writes an entertaining, if not entirely
> > convincing, cultural study.
> >
> > The book works well in its primary goal of tracking
> > cultural trends, and ends in 1976 with the Patty
> > Hearst affair and trial -- the ultimate amalgamation
> > of celebrity, POWs, conspiracies, cults and reality
> > TV. However, those expecting a full-out historical
> > analysis of the early '70s will not find it here.
> > Killen is heavily focused on the arts and
> > personalities. For example, there are extended
> > discussions on movies of the period, Warhol's
> > superstar Edie Sedgwick and the glam rock band the New
> > York Dolls, but the OPEC oil embargo and its
> > devastating effect on the economy are barely
> > mentioned.
> >
> > The work is divided into chapter-length explorations
> > of trends. Some trends are fully presented and serve
> > as a good study of the period. He takes the revelation
> > of the Watergate tapes and connects them with a rich
> > cultural brew of conspiracies, including some
> > conspiracy-minded movies and the year's top literary
> > work, Thomas Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow." He also
> > examines the bizarre fascination with cults, in which
> > Lyndon LaRouche, the Moonies and David Berg (founder
> > of the Family) all get to make an appearance. The
> > focus of the chapter on cults is not on the bizarre
> > and frequently dangerous ones but on the strange
> > behavior of one of the leaders of the anti-cult
> > crusaders, Ted Patrick. Patrick is quoted as
> > describing the cult's mind-control technique as "an
> > energy from the brain waves that comes down through
> > the eyes. ... This is what E.S.P. is. They're teaching
> > this in all the universities."
> >
> > However, others chapters lack both a full explanation
> > and a historical perspective. A look at how POWs
> > responded to being released after the Vietnam War
> > splits the returning veterans into two groups: those
> > who continued to support the war and America (in
> > Killen's retelling, primarily the elite pilots) and
> > those who were disenchanted after their experience --
> > the drafted Army grunts. That there was a split in the
> > POW ranks is definitely worth exploring. But outside
> > of a few isolated quotes, Killen does not provide any
> > real evidence that the second, disgruntled group was
> > actually a significant minority rather than just a few
> > people who could be quoted.
> >
> > In the same vein, Killen spends a chapter on power
> > shifts. A major example is how political power moved
> > away from places like New York City and began to be
> > concentrated in the Southwest, especially southwestern
> > California. While he provides an interesting story on
> > the growth of Orange County -- and especially on how
> > the city of Irvine was built -- he does not seem to
> > fully appreciate that the migration of political power
> > was a long-developing trend that had already
> > manifested itself much earlier. In the 1964
> > presidential race, both political candidates were able
> > to claim Southwestern roots. In reality, the Northeast
> > had been steadily losing power for years.
> >
> > Both of these chapters point to the hole in Killen's
> > central thesis. Are the '70s more important,
> > culturally or otherwise, than any other decade? Sure,
> > some events had an impact. Some people use Vietnam as
> > their reference point to advocate avoiding war and
> > foreign interventions. Others look back several
> > decades to the appeasement at Munich. Wiretapping?
> > Look at the LBJ tapes. POWs, cults and brainwashing?
> > All part of the Korean War. Did glam and punk rock
> > have more of an impact than 1980s hip-hop? The reality
> > is that it is pretty hard to single out any time
> > period as a dominant one. And while Killen provides
> > some good examples, it is easy to provide some
> > counterpoints.
> >
> > A further flaw in the work is that except for the
> > chapter on movies, the book mainly uses
> > contemporaneous commentators, rather than people
> > looking back with some perspective. Some of the
> > comments are completely unhelpful. New Yorker critic
> > Pauline Kael is cited for her comment that "the
> > country has never been more star crazy that it is
> > right now." Couldn't that have been said any time in
> > the past hundred years? And, in the only sports
> > reference Killen makes in a year of several noteworthy
> > sporting achievements (the Dolphins' completion of the
> > NFL's only undefeated season, Secretariat, the Ya
> > Gotta Believe Mets, the A's), there is the obvious
> > error in quoting a hagiography of Roberto Clemente,
> > who died on Dec. 31, 1972, calling him "perhaps the
> > most complete player of his generation." No. As every
> > Bay Area resident can attest, that would be Willie
> > Mays.
> >
> > It is clear that the '70s, like every other decade,
> > had a real impact on America. In "1973 Nervous
> > Breakdown," Killen provides and traces to the present
> > some good examples of this impact. He also gives the
> > reader an interesting primer on the American culture
> > of the time and some nice vignettes on some otherwise
> > forgotten phenomena. However, the book is a bit overly
> > ambitious in its goals. Killen does show that the '70s
> > were important, but there's no need to inflate its
> > influence on America.
> >
> > http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/16/
> > RVG2KI4PIN1.DTL
> >
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