many features of American life in the post-World War II years persisted after 1974. As before, the United States remained one of the most stable societies in the world. Most Americans still held strongly to long-established values, including commitment to the Constitution, respect for the law, belief in the necessity of equal opportunity, and confidence in the utility of hard work. No Western culture was more religious. Not even the travail of Vietnam dimmed the certainty of Americans that Communism must be contained and the Cold War carried on, in Asia as well as elsewhere. These were among
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