Five decades ago, the United States was in turmoil. A long and unpopular war was ending in defeat; inflation was high; and American politicians were accused of high-handed and illegal behaviour.
If all this sounds remarkably similar to the last few years, that’s because it is. But the mid-1970s was different in one crucial respect: how the US responded to it, and particularly how it responded to corruption. Major corporations had been giving bribes to win contracts in South Korea, Italy and Saudi Arabia; US politicians were appalled – and they acted to uphold values other than money.
