The Nation Associates have submitted to President Truman
and released to the public a secret report, written in Cairo last December
by James Terry Duce, a vice president of the Arabian-American Oil Co,
to W. F. Moore, the president of the company. If it is able to do so,
the Administration is bound to refute the implication in this report that
the foreign policy of this country is determined by the officers and major
shareholders of oil companies and not by the Administration set up in
Washington by the American electorate—or the Administration should
give official sanction to this usurpation of the executive function.
It makes little sense to fight the poll tax, on the one
hand, in order to extend the franchise, if, on the other hand, the vote
of the American people has no affect on its foreign policy, if the Administration
in Washington is a subsidiary of oil companies, and if the President of
the United States is a captive of the international empire of oil.
* * *
This empire, especially because of the foreign sources of
exploitation, knows no national barriers, as railways and the steel and
coal industries do. It gives its allegiance to those countries where it
can register its companies to avoid paying taxes to the United States.
It develops oil even when and where it is against the strategic interests
of the United States, as it is in the case of Arabian oil.
In the event of war with Russia, this oil, together with
the costly installations, will be the greatest prize for the Russians,
being at their very door. The companies in this empire prevail on the
American Administration to spend enormous sums out of the Treasury for
lend-lease to Arab potentates.
These sums actually are royalty paid by the American Treasury
for the oil these private, foreign companies extract from American soil
and sell to the United States Navy at a price greatly in excess of market
value. No wonder the profit is fabulous. As foreign companies, they do
not pay taxes; but as “American investment” they demand that
the Government do everything, not excepting going to war, to protect their
interests. The American Government spends billions of dollars of the taxpayers’
money to keep the Mediterranean route safe for them and their oil.
* * *
Since Arab oil has no market to place it, the oil companies
support the Marshall Plan with the proviso that their oil should be bought
for European consumption. This, of course, gives them the right to wear
the pious face of altruists. Jewish blood may be bartered for this oil—this
metaphor is already trite—but, after all, it is done to warm, in
the future, the homes of the Europeans, and especially the poor Nazis,
whose land needs rebuilding.
Does not the Gospel say to forgive your enemies? And besides,
why a home for the Jews? The oil companies also have no home. They are
cosmopolitan. They are above such things as homeland and patriotism. They
wave the flag only when they can pump the national treasury in addition
to the oil in foreign deserts.
* * *
When the United States voted partition of Palestine, the
oil companies broke into hectic activity. The Nation, in its last issue,
asserts that this activity has been a major obstacle in the way of implementing
the will of the United Nations in Palestine, in the Arab states, in Washington,
and at Lake Success.
The Arabian-American Oil Co. “undertook, first, to
assure the Arab rulers and political leaders that they could count upon
the active support of the oil companies and of the United States Government
experts in their opposition to the Jewish State, and, second, to kill
partition by advising the State Dept. of its dangers and reporting the
views and proposals of the Arab leaders.”
The vice-president of the Arabian-American Oil informed
last December the State Dept. from Egypt that “the red flag flies
in Palestine along with the Star of David, and it is generally recognized
that Jewish Palestine will be organized as a communistic state.”
The report of Mr. Duce contains a description of some of
the maneuvers of the Arabian-American Oil Company in the field of foreign
politics in opposition to the official policy of the United States of
America. You may vote and elect a President and members of Congress, but
foreign policy is not made by them; the State Department is only a wheel
on the carriage of His Majesty Oil.
* * *
Would anyone support in Congress the idea that the atomic
industry should be denationalized and made the business of private capital?
Certainly not. The oil companies have assumed to interfere in the foreign
policy of the United States, not only in Palestine but everywhere and
in the most critical areas; may not this interference of the oil interests
in the foreign policy of America finally open the eyes of the legislators
and make them realize that oil, like the atomic industry, is too explosive
in international relations and requires governmental ownership?
Oil may lead the country into war with Russia, not while
and when the defense of democratic liberties requires this, but but while
and when the interests of the oil companies demand it. Therefore the people
of America will defend their constitutional rights to decide their own
destiny, if it will demand that the oil possessions of Americans abroad
should become governmental property.
* * *
Gov. Dewey promised, if elected, a thorough cleaning of
the Administration in Washington. If he is elected, he will have a job
in which he was trained on a smaller scale when he broke the racketeer
rings of the City of New York. A larger ship has larger sails. If the
vote of the nation brings him to Washington, he will have on his hands
the the biggest job of “busting” the oil racket.
