Where, Oh Where, Did They Put the Future?

In 1960, at the Manhattan-based Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the central body of Reform Judaism, someone decided to create a time capsule to be opened at the millennium. A number of world figures were asked how things would be different in the year 2000. Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion predicted that the Soviet Union would be transformed into a "free and democratic" country and that there would be peace between Arabs and Israelis. Lyndon Johnson, then a Senator, saw the end of racial segregation in America. Eleanor Roosevelt foresaw a Jewish President. Today, because the union is moving offices, it wants to dig out the reliquary and open it. Trouble is, the union can't find it, and the only record the group has of who said what comes from a couple of newspaper clippings. One story says the time capsule was installed in the building's "walnut-paneled boardroom." That, unfortunately, was an error.