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The new President takes over at a particularly challenging time, one of those turning points in U.S. history that seem to be occurring at shorter and shorter intervals. After the banishment of Richard Nixon, the decent, solid and forthright Gerald Ford—to his everlasting credit—did much to restore faith and confidence in Government and to curb inflation. But he did little to grapple with the nation's other problems. The U.S. is still moving into the post-Viet Nam and post-Watergate era, still struggling to recover from a deep recession. Revitalizing the economy, of course, will be Carter's immediate problem, but there are others—racial relations, Government reorganization, energy, welfare, health care—demanding fresh and strong leadership. To provide that, Carter will have to surmount the continuing doubts about himself, arbitrate the increasingly insistent demands of competing constituencies and establish himself as a President who can inspire Americans to be as good as he maintains they really are.
While Carter has a long way to go to prove himself, his coming to power overshadowed all other developments in 1976, the year of the Bicentennial. The U.S. gave itself a glorious birthday party—climaxed forever in the mind's eye by the vision of the tall ships ghosting up New York Harbor. There was also a valid occasion for some old-fashioned Yankee Doodle pride. For the first time in the 75-year history of the honors, all of the Nobel Prizes went to Americans—six men won or shared the science awards, and Saul Bellow capped a distinguished career of 32 years by winning the nomination for literature.
In the world at large, China's Hua Kuo-feng, a moderate, aborted a prospective coup by radicals and succeeded Chairman Mao Tse-tung, whose death at 82 posed the classic problem of power transfer in a totalitarian nation. In the Middle East, Syrian President Hafez Assad gained new stature by forcibly bringing to a halt the civil war in Lebanon involving rightist Christians, left-wing Moslems, and their Palestinian allies. Seriously set back, and at least temporarily under control of Arab moderates, the Palestine Liberation Organization seemed more amenable to making compromises at a new Geneva conference to end the age-old feuds between Arab and Jew.
There remains bitter opposition, but the year saw the beginning of the end of white dominance in southern Africa. Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith, 57, finally bowed to the inevitable and agreed in principle to transfer power in two years to the blacks, who outnumber the whites 22 to 1. Smith would never have given in without the pressure of Henry