Lawrence Statton wrote:

Can someone, without adding TOO much editorial slant, explain
what the 1970s push to incentive licensing was,

Shamelessly copied from: http://ham-shack.com/history.html. Check here for
the history before and after the event.

"1967-The FCC announced the new Incentive Licensing rules: over the next 2
years, General & Conditional operators would lose 50% of the 75-15 meter
phone bands, the "First Class" idea was dropped, the Advanced Class was
reopened to new applicants, Extra & Advanced Class operators get exclusive
subbands on 80-15 and 6 meters, the Novice license term is doubled to two
years, but Novices lose their 2 meter phone privileges, the FCC restates the
"Technicians are experimenters, not communicators" policy, and states that
the next license step for Novices is the General, not Technician, class."

and with as little slant as possible explain why it was a SNAFU

That SNAFU of course is a slant by those of us who lost privileges in the
new licensing system. I was a General at the time. I actually had to buy a
Bash book to get them back...