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Show in the latter. With few exceptions the economies of the nations of the World have recorded substantial progress and some, notably Japan, have registered spectacular gains. Until recently this policy framework has had broad public support among the United States electorate, but now, if I read the signs correctly, the national mood is changing. This is grave danger that growing public pressure, unless it is soon stemmed, will cause the United States to withdraw more into itself, to look inward rather than outward, to redefine its objectives in many ways that will hinder the future development of international business as we have known it these last 20 years. Some of the causes for these changing attitudes are obvious, others are more subtle. Some stem out of United States failures and miscalculations. Others are the natural reactions of Americans to the actions or inactions of other nations on the policies that they have adopted that affect United States' interests. Certainly one of the overriding causes has been the failure on the political front where the United States extended military assistance to its friends and entered into a series of security alliances designed to halt the spread of communism. On the economic front the war in Vietnam and the failure to fund it properly created an excessive demand in the United States leading to inflation, increased imports at a rate faster than our growth in exports, and a balance of payments problem. On the political front the widespread public disillusion with the Vietnam War, coupled with the problems of the cities and the disadvantaged, civil and campus strife, -2- |