Re: Kissinger, Bilderberg, and 1973 oil shock

[Daniel Davies <dsquared@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I would suggest that it's in the nature of secret meetings that it's very difficult to find out what happened at them, and even more difficult to prove it.  I wouldn't dismiss anything out of hand; it's entirely possible that oil prices were discussed at a Bilderberg meeting, though somewhat less likely that there was an actual agreement to do things there (Bilderberg is more of a talking shop than a cabal; any concerted action would most likely be taken as a result of bilateral diplomacy after the original idea had been floated at a Bilderberg meeting).

 

However, from general knowledge of NorthEast Scotland, I find it unlikely that anything was done specifically to "save" investments in the North Sea.  As of 1973, the Forties field was just coming onstream and new money was sinking into the North Sea at a rate of knots.  But it didn't really start flowing until 1975 and the North Sea field wasn't really economic until the massively higher oil prices of the 1980s.  If one wants to fit North Sea oil into this theory, you would need the conspiracy theory to be a much bigger, multi-year conspiracy to bid the prices up to $25-30/barrel.  The 1973 bump up to $10 wouldn't, AFAICS, have made that much difference to the oil investments that had been made between 1969 and 1973 (basically Arbroath, the first Forties fields and bits and pieces of Norwegian oil; I am assuming that the Norwegians have neligible influence in the Bilderberg group but am willing to be proved wrong).

 

dd

-----Original Message-----
From: PEN-L list [mailto:PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of John Exdell
Sent: 14 September 2004 19:22
To: PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Kissinger, Bilderberg, and 1973 oil shock

I know he is or was a La Rouchie.  But that doesn't make his claim false.  In any case, I have just found another source for the thesis the 1973 oil price surge was the result of Nixon administration policy: Peter Gowan's The Global Gamble (Verso 1999), pp. 21-23, with references to reputable articles and books.

Gowan:  "The Nixon administration's second step was to try to ensure that international financial relations should be taken out of the control of state central banks and should be increasingly centered upon private financial operators.  It sought to achieve this goal through exploiting US control over international oil supplies.  It is still widely believed that the sharp and steep increase in oil prices in 1973 was carried out by the Gulf states as part of an anti-Israel and anti-US policy connected to the Yom Kippur war.  Yet as now know, the oil price rises were the result of US influence on the oil states and they were arranged in part as an exercise in economic statecraft directed against America's 'allies' in Western Europe and Japan.  And another dimension of the Nixon administration's policy on oil price rises was to give a new role, through them, to the U.S. private banks in international financial relations."

This background doesn't tell us that Kissinger  personally instigated the oil shock prices at the May 1973 meeting in Sweden, but it makes it plausible. Hence the joke below about the Queen of England pushing heroin is really off target.

John Exdell


At 10:53 AM 9/14/2004, you wrote:

yeah, I was wondering: what about the role of the Queen of England in pushing heroin?
Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://myweb.lmu.edu/jdevine

-----Original Message-----

From: PEN-L list [mailto:PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Max B. Sawicky

Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2004 7:48 AM

To: PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Kissinger, Bilderberg, and 1973 oil shock

FYI, Engdahl is a larouchie.

 

From: PEN-L list [mailto:PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John Exdell

Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2004 12:36 AM

To: PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Subject: Kissinger, Bilderberg, and 1973 oil shock

Can anyone verify or provide solid evidence for the view that the 1973 OPEC oil price hikes was planned in May of that year at a Bilderberg conference in Sweden, under the guidance of Henry Kissinger?  According to this account, the seven oil companies, major New York and London banks, Kissinger, and high Saudi officials fashioned a plan to raise oil prices by 400%, which occurred following the Yom Kipur war later that year.  The motives were these: to stabilize the dollar, enhance the assets of the Anglo-American banking empire, and rescue precarious new oil investments in Prudhoe Bay and the North Sea.

The only source I can find is F. William Engdahl's A Century of War, published in 1992,  with a new edition forthcoming at the University of Michigan Press.  Engdahl refers to documents in his possession but has not put anything on the web that I can find.

As far as means, motives, and opportunity go, the story makes perfect sense.  But did it happen?

John Exdell

       Department of Philosophy - Dickens 201 - Kansas State University - Manhattan, KS 66506
      Phone/Voicemail: 785-532-0359; Philosophy Department: 785-532-6758; Fax: 785-532-3522