POWER CUT: JULY 15,1976

摘要

AMERICA WAS one of the world's two superpowers, but it remained dangerously dependent on foreign oil. The 1973 OPEC embargo-imposed on America in retaliation for weapons sales to Israel during the Yom Kippur War-had cost the United States between $10 billion and $20 billion in gross national product (upwards of $86 billion today) as well as 500,000 jobs. It exposed the country's extreme dependence on foreign oil, a "vulnerability to supply interruptions [that] will get worse, not better." Sure enough, another oil shock would hit in 1979 after the Iranian Revolution. As America sank into another recession, blocks-long lines at gas stations nationwide again became a daily test of endurance.