美國, 韓美關係

In 1964 U.S. News Predicted the Future: How Did We Do?

이강기 2015. 10. 15. 17:02

In 1964 U.S. News Predicted the Future: How Did We Do?

 

From rocket cars to the average salary, our Cold War-era edition got some right on the money, while others, not so much.

 

 

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    Talk about a blast from the past. U.S. News went back through its old editions and came up with a real gem: In 1964, our predecessors analyzed how far American society had changed (“advanced” might not be entirely the best term) since 1914, the year World War I began. The world had shifted entirely during that time, not in the least thanks to World War II where, yet again, the U.S. bolstered European allies in defeating Germany. The Cold War was in full swing in the mid-1960s as top leaders cautioned about the spread of communism throughout Asia and even into the Western Hemisphere.

     

    The article went on to make predictions about what the next 50 years would hold, creating an image of 2014 America that, in some senses, was right on the money. In other realms, like the proliferation of rocket cars, perhaps U.S. News got a bit too imaginative. Check out our collection of the best predictions and how our crystal ball ultimately performed.

     

    1) U.S. Population: 395 million

     

    USNWR

     

    CORRECT: That’s a little overly ambitious, but U.S. News of 1964 was but pretty close to the mark. The Census Bureau estimates there are 316 million people in the U.S. as of 2013.
     
    2) “Trillions will have the place in the vocabulary that millions had 50 years ago and billions have today. Overall spending will be in the trillions. So will debt.”

     

    Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images

     

    CORRECT: “Trillion” for the average American may have officially joined the ranks of “billion,” “million” and “numbers too big to fathom.” The gross U.S. federal debt is up to around $17.5 trillion, according to the Treasury Department. And President Barack Obama's latest budget proposal amounts to just over $3.9 trillion in government spending. 

     

     

    As for vocabulary, “millions” still wins out with 163 million results in Google. “Billions” shows up almost 18 million times, with “trillions” only 1.8 million.

     

    3) “A population crowded into great strips of cities will be struggling to enjoy driving 200 million or more automobiles where there are 66 million now.”

    USNWR

     

    CORRECT: There are 111 million cars on the road today, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. If 1964 U.S. News’ definition of “automobiles” extends to buses, trucks and motorcycles, that brings the total up to 254 million, about on the money.
     
    4) “Supersonic transports that, within a decade or so, are to carry passengers across the American continent or to Europe in an hour and a half probably will be in the process of being replaced by rocket transports capable of cutting that time in half.”

    Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images

     

    INCORRECT: It’s an accurate prediction that Western engineers would eventually harness supersonic flight and adapt it for civilian use. That’s about where the validity of this prediction ends.

     

    The Aerospatiale-BAC Concorde supersonic airliner was created from a joint French-British project, first introduced publicly in 1976. A flight from New York to London, which usually would take about 7 hours on a commercial jet, was reduced to only 3 hours and 20 minutes, according to the Telegraph.

     

    The potential of this mode of transportation came to a screeching halt when a Concorde crashed while taking off from Paris in July 2000, killing all 109 people who were on board. It’s popularity plummeted, and combined with the airliner’s great expense and lavish onboard offerings, the program was canceled in 2003.

     

    As for 45-minute trips to Europe by rocket, that’s a great dream but an unlikely prospect in the near future. But who knows? The Defense Department is experimenting with a prototype aircraft that, if proven, would be able to cross the Atlantic in 12 minutes.

     

    5) “China within a half century will be pushing past 1.5 billion people and will face a desperate need for more space. If the world is to see a nuclear war, that war might be one fought between Russia and China for control of the wide-open spaces of Russia’s Far East.”

     

    Sergei Ilnitsky/AFP/Getty Images

     

    PARTIAL CREDIT: It’s safe to say 1964 U.S. News was in the ballpark on this one. There are 1.35 billion Chinese people in 2014, according to the CIA World Factbook, and they are, indeed, straining the Chinese government for resources.

     

    As for potential conflict with Russia, relations between the two nations actually went the other way since 1964. A common communist ideology pulled the two countries – albeit reluctantly – together in the last half of the 20th century. A new, closed-door deal in May fixed energy prices for sales between the two powers, sealing their short-term relationship, and bolstering China’s growing demand for energy and Russia’s need for cash. Both countries have also expressed interest in prospecting the still-underdeveloped eastern reaches of the sprawling Russian state, largely for energy exploration.

     

    6) “An American in another 50 years long since will have been on the moon. Space will have become an element of supporting defense platforms, communications satellites, maybe launching platforms for ventures not yet dreamed of.”

     

    Paolo Nespoli/ESA/NASA/Getty Images

     

    NOT QUITE: Good call. Neil Armstrong became the first person to step on the face of the moon on July 21, 1969.

    However, what early 1960s sci-fi fans saw as the beginning of a steady colonization did not really materialize as such. America is the only country that boasts lunar pedestrians among its citizenry, and only 12 people have completed the feat. Gene Cernan was the last, a Navy pilot and astronaut who flew on 1972’s Apollo 17 mission. As he re-entered the lunar modular to begin the trip home, he reportedly acknowledged his historical place and yearned for future astronauts to return. No such luck, unless Dennis Hope gets his way.


    As for using space as a platform, 1964 U.S. News was dead right. There are 1,100 known and active satellites currently orbiting the earth, with as many as 2,800 inactive ones. 
     
    7) “Hydrogen weapons will have proliferated among many nations of the world. China is sure to have them. France will, too. So will Germany. Israel and Egypt may. American officials place at 15 or 20 the nations that will have nuclear weapons before the end of his century.”

     

    China Photos/Getty Images

     

    CORRECT: The following countries now have nuclear weapons within their military arsenals: China, France, India, Pakistan, Russia, the U.K. and the U.S. North Korea boasts it has developed such weaponry and has carried out a string of nuclear tests in the last decade. Israel is also believed to have nuclear weapons, according to a 2013 Congressional Research Service report.

     

    Germany does not have its own nuclear weapons program, but does house and store nuclear weapons materials from the U.S., along with other nations such as Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.

     

    Egypt’s second president, Gamal Nasser, elected in 1954, began a ballistic missile program, according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, but never decided to proceed with nuclear weapons testing. It is now a member in good standing of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

     

    Other countries 1964 U.S. News likely could not have predicted would pursue nuclear weapons include Iran, which at the time was under the rule of the shah and a close ally of the U.S. and the U.K. The 1979 revolution installed the new theocratic rule under the ayatollah, which has included the development of a nuclear program its government insists is peaceful. Seven-party talks are ongoing in Vienna to broker and agreement over Iran’s nuclear future.

     

    8) “If the record of the past is repeated, the dollar of 2014 will be an 11-cent dollar in terms of 1914 … In terms of today that value will have been cut by 67 percent.”

     

    Paul J. RichardsAFP/Getty Images

    NOT QUITE: Inflation has increased m

    ore than 650 percent since 1964, according to The Bureau of Labor Statistics. An item worth a dollar then would now cost $7.67.

    The rate of inflation since 1914 is almost twice as much as what 1964 U.S. News predicted: $1 at the beginning of World War II is now worth almost $24, an increase of almost 2,300 percent.

     

    9) “The 60-hour week of 1914 that became the 40-hour week of 1964 probably will be the 30-hour workweek of 2014 – a six-hour day five days a week. Average family income, now $7,800 a year, is likely in another half century to exceed $20,000 a year in 1964 dollars.”

     

    Oli Scarff/Getty Images

     

    INCORRECT: So much for robots and machines taking the load off. As much as 1964 U.S. News editors were looking forward to kicking back in retirement while the Jetson’s “Rosie” served drinks, the supposed 30-hour workweek never came to fruition.

     

    In fact, The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the average American works 7.9 hours every day of the workweek. And 34 percent of the population works over the weekend, clocking in an average of 5.5 hours on both Saturdays and Sundays.

     

    As for income, U.S. News’ 1964 prediction would amount to $153,500 per year. No such luck: the median household take from 2008 to 2012 was $53,046, according to the Census Bureau.

     

    • 10) “Life in 1964 may appear as the ‘good old days’ when contrasted with the scramble for an existence in the crowded turmoil of a concentrated, automated and computerized world of tomorrow. It will be a world moving at rocket-like speed.”

     

     

    UNDETERMINED: The world has changed incrementally since 1964, perhaps as much as authors at that time saw the world leading up to World War I. Pictures splashed across our issue included that of a space man casually inspecting some moon dust, the growth of overpopulation and urban expansion, and the increasing role of computers.

     

    It was a simpler time technologically, but the pages of U.S. News were also filled with threats of encroaching communism in Russia and China, and predictions of how a seemingly inevitable war in Vietnam would play out. In that sense, perhaps some things don’t change.

     

     

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