Show fr Student Life Monthly zz: Book Review Page 20 - t continued Power Play: Gil in Ihs Diddle East Author - Leonard Mosley Random House: New York 1973 457 pages kiss it" The recent complexities of nationalizations challenges by the smaller oil companies and eventual American dominance over Britain put a cramp in Mosley's writing hand "A third of the United States' overseas investments and half of Britains' are tied up in Middle East oil" In July 1928 at Ostend Belgium by Dayne Goodwin Leonard Mosley is the author of several dozen books narrating the twentieth century era of war imperialism and revolution A proper Briton who sadly watched the empire disintegrate Mosley's most recent book has the telltale odor of Rudyard Kipling Sir Richard Francis Burton and the Thousand and One Nights version of Middle East life and politics representatives of a has developed a morecosmopolitan outlook in reverse correlation with the strength of the British empire In Power Play he writes with a cultivated naivete that gives him cover for throwing a few stones at the oil companies The thrust of Power Play however remains completely unsympathetic and disparaging of the struggles for in the Middle East - Company-straightforw- ard American oil companies drew a red line around a map of the Middle East to indicate their territory No Arab was present or aware of the secret agreements Behind the powerful oil companies stood their respective home governments with arms and dollars ready to defend free enterprise The local Arab rulers that stood between the oil companies and the Arab people were maintained as a business expense During World War when the market for d 1 1 self-determinati- Anglo-Persia- n major British and half-doze- n self-ordaine- Mosley however Power Play is a useful history of oij imperialism in the Middle East Beneath the trite adventure story surface is an informative account of discovering and producing petroleum a rather important commodity in the world market Because Power Play presents the oil company side of the story and the "upstream" (production as contrasted to "downstream" distribution) part of the process Mosley is able to capitalize on his knowledge and strengths without attempting to deal seriously with Arab and Iranian nationalism or the oil market Power Play describes the initiation of oil production in Iran Iraq Saudi Arabia the Persian Gulf and Libya Mosley begins with the Oil Company the Turkish Petroleum colonialist enterprises- - - and ends with the 1972 OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) success in getting 20 percent control of oil production and agreement to eventual 51 percent control The interimperialist rivalries oil company versus oil company US versus Britain Italy versus the major oil companies etc are the flesh on the bones of Mosley's outline sketch of twentieth century Middle East politics Mosley is at his best describing the early days of unhindered British and American exploitation In those days according to Mosley the Arabs lived by their proverb "the hand you can not bite Aramco's (Arabian-America- Oil n by Standard of New Company-own- ed Jersey and California Mobil and Texaco) oiL decreased maintenance of King ibn Saud became a burden James A Moffett a director of Aramco and friend of President Roosevelt wrote a memorandum to the US -- ” ' government: "It has now come to the point where it is impossible for the company to continue the growing burden and responsibility of financing an independent country particularly under present However the King is abnormal conditions desperate He has told us that unless necessary financial assistance is immediately forthcoming he has grave fears for the financial stability of his country" The US government obliged Aramco and King Saud with $99 million tax dollars under the cover of e This was just the beginning As World War II drew to a close the government used its control of raw materials allocation to give the Lend-Leas- American oil companies everything they needed to gain hegemony over oil production The icing for this cake came in the early fifties when the oil companies got the Arab governments to take their rake-of- f in income tax instead of royalties Meanwhile the US Treasury conveniently allowed the oil companies to write off their Arab government taxes against their US tax debt The result was a savings to the oil companies and a loss to the US Treasury of around $200 million a year for starters When you consider the oil depletion allowances and other favors the oil companies gain from their cozy relationship with the government it is clear that the cake being iced is a layer cake The bottom layer is the deprived Arab masses the top layer is the American consumer and taxpayer The respective governments ice the cake and stick it in the oil company cupboard The close of Power Play focuses on the rise of OPEC Sheik Abdullah Tariki a nationalistic Saudi (eventually thrown out of his own country by King Faisal) presided at the emergency meeting of oil ministers that produced OPEC Eventually OPEC felt strong enough to place its united strength up against the united strength of the major oil least for the purpose of bargaining The June 1967 Israeli attack on Egypt and Syria was the first occasion when the Arab countries united in boycott against the US The boycott quickly petered out when oil sale dollars stopped com-panies-- at coming The story of Middle East oil and the struggle over who will produce and distribute it is far from over Review i I |