The Archives

1964 In the U.S. at mid-century, poverty carried “a special frustration,” Newsweek wrote, because “to be poor in America today is to be out of step with the nation, a stranger in paradise, a frequently faceless member of an alien culture.” Society had finally “attained the technological resources to wipe out poverty,” yet those advancements were the very things “aggravating the plight” of the have-nots. Over 50 years later, with poverty affecting over 11.5 million American children and looming anxieties about artificial intelligence, technology has taken that “special frustration” and raised it.

1974

William Friedkin’s massive hit The Exorcist “brought into frenzied focus the underground anxieties, fantasies and fears that have lately broken through the surface of contemporary society,” Newsweek wrote. The “rare and dying art” of exorcism tapped into that confusion, raising “starkly fundamental questions of good and evil.”

1983

The cover addressed the tens of thousands of victims of human rights abuses imprisoned around the world—from Santiago to Siberia—for refusing to give up their political beliefs. The magazine reported that “Americans don’t want their government to remain silent.” The question of silent diplomacy—whether it ever works—continues to be debated.