Here is one of ABC's best teams, circa 1969-70: Harry Reasoner, who had come over from CBS after it appeared he would never succeed Walter Cronkite, and Howard K. Smith, who had been with CBS many years before.
I always really liked this intro: intense, aggressive music (that matches up perfectly with the graphics), high energy, with an underlying seriousness. As the images flash by faster and faster, the subliminal message seems to be, "When the world moves so fast you can't keep up, turn to the trusted names at ABC News." Knowing that Lou Ciaffi and Irv Chapman and Peter Jennings are on the beat was supposed to impress us (although apparently it didn't impress enough of us).
And note those issues - abortion, the Mideast, unemployment, inflaton, China, Congress, ecology (or as we would think of it today, the environment), Substitute "Iraq/Afghanistan" for "Vietnam," and you have virtually a duplicate of what could be on today's news. It proves, once again, that there's very little new under the sun. ◙
