The Decline and Fall of a Once Great American City

Now, San Francisco is a very dark place.

Back in the late 1970s I was based in San Francisco as a correspondent with CBS News.  I remember that more than a few of us referred to the city as “Halloween-by-the-sea” – a good-natured nod to the city’s quirkiness.

Over the years, the progressives who ran the city government would weigh in on one foreign policy matter or another, which prompted one w…