Forsooth, Soothsayers

At the start of every year, pundits, astrologers and other assorted soothsayers crank out their predictions for the year ahead. Few take them very seriously, and judging by the 1970 performance, that is just as well. There were some outstanding goofs. Britain's Astrologer Maurice Woodruff predicted that Ronald Reagan would not be reelected. In Italy, Astaroth foresaw that Leonid Brezhnev would be ousted last spring and later murdered. In the U.S., Sybil Leek, self-styled queen of witches, revealed that in October, Richard Nixon would be caught up in a saucy sex scandal that would raise the nation's eyebrows.

A year ago it was also a time for journalists and critics to look forward to what 1970 would bring, but their record turned out to be nearly as spotty as the astrologers. Many expected a hot summer of black unrest in the ghettos that never materialized. Economists looked for a solid upturn from recession by the end of 1970, but there has been none. Few observers of the U.S. scene foresaw that political passions on the campuses would become muted in a new emphasis on "privatism." One who was right on, however, was Arthur Koestler, who said late in 1969 that writers and film makers "will discover again that pubic hair is less poetic than Gretchen's braids." The enormous success of Erich Segal's gushingly romantic film and novel Love Story has already proved him right.

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