Q. David Bowers
The Year 1972 in History
Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern chose Senator Thomas Eagleton for his running mate. Eagleton later dropped out of the race when it was revealed that he had once undergone electroshock therapy. It mattered very little in the long run; Nixon won in an amazing landslide victory, with just Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. giving their electoral college votes to the Democrats. Alabama Governor and presidential candidate George Wallace was shot at a political rally, forcing him to spend the rest of his days in a wheelchair.
On January 5,1972, President Richard M. Nixon signed a $5.5 billion bill for a program to develop a reusable space shuttle. In February, President Nixon visited China and conducted negotiations to reduce hostilities and to increase scientific and cultural relations; since the late 1940s, United States relations with China had been cold and distant.
On March 22 the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution was passed, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex; however, by the end of the year only 22 of the required 38 states had ratified the amendment. In May,' President Nixon became the first United States chief executive to visit Moscow. He signed a number of important agreements and met with Leonid L. Brezhnev. The Vietnam war continued to rage, and full scale bombing, which had been suspended, was resumed on December 18. Senator William Proxmire waged a battle against government inefficiency and waste, and asked the Justice Department to investigate why the Air Force had reportedly paid $400,000,000 more than budget to build the C-5A military cargo plane. Nixon also ordered the heaviest B-52 bombing raids of the war in 1972, in a futile effort to stem the ever-increasing influx of North Vietnamese soldiers into South Vietnam.
On June 17 five men were caught in a burglary attempt at the Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate Apartments in Washington, D.C. On August 1, 1972, Washington Post reporters Robert Woodward and Carl Bernstein reported a financial connection between the Watergate breakin and Nixon's Committee for the Re-Election of the President (popularly if inaccurately known as CREEP). On August 29, 1972, President Nixon announced that a White House investigation of the Watergate situation revealed that administration officials were not connected in any way with it. On October 10, Woodward and Bernstein reported that FBI agents had established that the Watergate incident arose out of a massive campaign of political spying conducted on behalf of Nixon's re-election and was directed by officials in the White House. A White House spokesman called the Washington Post stories "shabby journalism," "mudslinging," and "unfounded and unsubstantiated allegations." By election time the depth of the scandal was not fully realized, and President Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro T. Agnew were reelected on November 7, 1972, beating Democratic candidates George S. McGovern and R. Sargent Shriver. Although Nixon proclaimed his honesty over and over again and stated "I am not a crook," over the next two years the majority of his top advisors would commit perjury and Nixon himself would resign rather than face investigation. Many fine accomplishments, particularly in international relations, were overshadowed by disgrace when the Nixon administration finally toppled.
Bobby Fischer became the world's chess champion. American swimmer Mark Spitz set a record by winning seven gold medals at the summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany; the United States won a total of 33 gold medals and the Soviet Union won 50 at the games. The Apollo 16 crew left Cape Kennedy on April 16, 1972 and headed for the moon, where they spent 71 hours and two minutes on the surface, returning with 214 pounds of rock and soil specimens. On March 22, the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse urged that criminal penalties be ended for the possession and use of marijuana. On November 14, 1972, the Dow Jones Industrial Average of blue-chip stock prices closed above 1,000 for the first time in history, reaching 1,003.16.
One of the greatest literary hoaxes of all time was Clifford Irving's The Autobiography of Howard Hughes, for which McGraw-Hill paid $750,000. Films of the year included The Godfather. Books included August 1914, Jonathan Livingston Seagull; Captains and Kings, and The Best and the Brightest. Life magazine, first published in 1936, suspended weekly publication.
On June 15, the American Numismatic Association began operations of the American Numismatic Association Certification Service (ANACS). The first coin authenticated (#A000l) was a 1918 Aztec Calendar Stone gold 20 pesos of Mexico belonging to Mr. True Davis, President of the National Bank of Washington. This was a ceremonial certification, and was done without charge. In October, World-Wide Coin of Atlanta, Georgia announced the simultaneous purchase of the Hydeman specimen of the famous 1913 Liberty Head nickel and the Idler specimen of the "King of American Coins," the 1804 dollar. Both coins were purchased from professional numismatist Abe Kosoff for the then-lofty price of $180,000.
The coin market was active, and much attention was focused on gold coins. Silver dollars were popular, as they had been for the past decade. Grading was a leading topic of debate, and it seemed that just about everyone had different ideas on the subject. Dr. William H. Sheldon's 70-point grading scale, conceived in 1949 as a market price formula for 1793-1814 large cents, was expanded, altered, and used in many differentways. Before long, such grades unknown to Sheldon, as MS-61, MS-62, etc., were in vogue, often accompanied by plus or minus signs, sometimes in multiple, as MS-61++. Many old-time numismatists threw up their hands in bewilderment. Coin marketing was becoming the message, and traditional aspects of the hobby-such as art, history, romance, and the excitement of completing a set or series-were left behind, as just two things became important: grade and price.