Israel's Historic Rothschild Dynasty Connection Revisited: Part 6

Nathan Rothschild: Engaged in smuggling, profited from UK gov't link/bond speculation

During the first two decades of the 19th-century, the Rothschild Dynasty that began bankrolling the Zionist movement’s settler-colonialists by the end of the 19th-century also acquired its family wealth from an illegal smuggling business operation. As The Rothschilds: A European Family book recalled:

“Nathan [Rothschild] engaged in highly profitable smuggling: he had cash illicitly imported into France. Waiting at the French coast, his brother James [Rothschild] took receipt of the cash and used it to buy bills drawn on London that were on the market for below nominal value owing to the trade embargo. Nathan [Rothschild] then redeemed them in London at their face value.”

But, when a general of the early 19th-century UK imperialist government, named Wellington, invaded France and “needed French cash or bills draw on banks in Southern France,” Nathan Rothschild “decided to place his smuggling activities in the service of the British” imperialist “government;” and “his plan for supplying money to Wellington was carried out under the strictest secrecy,” according to the same book. In addition, “the link thus forged with the British government was to pay off for the Rothschilds” who “were entrusted with the payments of subsidies destined for the British allies” which were “transferred via the Rothschild Bank,” that received “risk-free commission,” according to The Rothschilds: A European Family book.

As a result, as the same book recalled:

“The five [Rothschild] brothers made their greatest profits after 1815 by speculating in bonds, by exploiting differences in quotations on the various exchanges and by conducting money transactions swiftly…In the first decades of the 19th-century the Rothschilds overtook all the other banks. They built up a monopoly on loans to the major European powers and established a second pillar for their business, namely railway construction, at an early date before the business in state bonds declined. Their wealth had reached an unprecedented size…”

By the second half of the 19th-century, Rothschild Dynasty members were profiting from their exploitation of the oil resources of Russia, which was then undemocratically ruled by a monarchical and institutionally anti-Semitic Czarist government. As The Rothschilds: A European Family book observed:

“…At around 1870 the French Rothschilds already had a stake in the importation of American crude oil to France. In this context the Rothschilds had oil refineries built in Fiume in Austria and in Spain.

“The need for cheap oil supplies for their refineries soon sparked the Rothschild’s interest in the oil fields around Baku in Russia…Within a short time the Rothschilds had become the second most powerful oil group in Russia…”

And by 1912, the Rothschild Dynasty that was funding the Zionist movement’s settler colonialists in Palestine owned stock in the Shell/Royal Dutch transnational oil corporation that profited from the exploitation of the oil resources of Dutch imperialism’s Indonesian colony. As the same book noted:

“…Oil had increasingly come to be used as engine fuel and this had prompted drilling for oil in Indonesia, a Dutch colony. This led to the company Royal Dutch being set up, which soon merged with the transport from Shell. The Paris House of Rothschild decided to join this new group, which became ever more powerful…In 1912 the Rothschilds swapped their holding in the Russian joint stock company [of Czarist Russia’s “second most powerful oil group”], worth a total of 27.2 million roubles, for shares in Shell/Royal Dutch…”

Shell/Royal Dutch: Oil firm owned by Rothschilds, profited from Dutch Imperialism

 (end of part 6)

Columbia University's Rockefeller-Trimble Military and Advanced Systems' Connection: Trilateral Commission's Merit Janow Named Columbia SIPA Dean--Conclusion

“In his 1976 book, The Control of Oil, the former Chief Economist of the Senate Subcommittee on Anti-Trust and Monopoly, John Blair, noted that in 1938 the Rockefeller family held directly or indirectly, 20 percent of Exxon’s stock, 16 percent of Mobil’s stock, 11 percent of Standard Oil of Indiana/Amoco’s stock and 12 percent of Standard Oil of California (SOCAL)/Chevron’s stock. In 1974, according to the book Everybody’s Business, the Rockefeller family still owned 1 percent of all Exxon stock (worth $156.7 million), 1.7 percent of Mobil’s stock (worth $63.6 million), .2 percent of Standard Oil of Indiana/Amoco stock (worth $11.7 million) and 2 percent of Standard Oil of California (SOCAL)/Chevron stock (worth $$85.3 million). In addition, Trilateral Commission Founder David Rockefeller’s Chase Manhattan Bank owned 1.5 percent of SOCAL/Chevron’s stock in 1980.”

--Downtown (l2/12/90)

“…The Rockefeller clan – there are 242 of them, including spouses and minors – has endured as a powerful force…ExxonMobil stock is the single biggest holding of some family members…”

--from a May 2, 2008 Financial Times article by Chrystia Freeland


“One area of Rockefeller & Co. know-how has been built out of the Rockefeller family's 50-year record of integrating environmental, social, and governance concerns into its portfolio and investment decisions...Rockefeller targets families with $30 million; new clients are generally subject to a minimum $100,000 annual fee…”

--from a September 15, 2012 Barron’s.com article by Richard C. Morais

“In 1978, the year Charles Trimble founded Trimble Navigation, the original NAVSTAR satellite was launched, giving the U.S. government its first reference point for a worldwide radio-navigation system that became known as GPS, or Global Positioning System…GPS was developed to meet military needs…The U.S. government invested $12 billion in the project...GPS first earned its admirers during the Persian Gulf War, a time when, not coincidentally, Trimble Navigation captured the interest of industry observers….During Operation Desert Storm, Trimble Navigation provided troops with Trimpacks, devices that enabled soldiers to pinpoint their location. The hand-held receivers performed admirably, earning praise from military commanders and making Trimble Navigation an attractive prospect for investors...When sales in 1990 reached $63.3 million, the announcement fanned investor interest in the company. The figure exceeded Wall Street analysts' expectations by roughly 25 percent, prompting investors to look closer at the Sunnyvale, California-based enterprise. What they saw was a company controlling 60 percent of a market whose revenue volume was more than doubling annually….They saw a company whose orders for Trimpack receivers totaled $40 million between October 1990 and March 1991. Trimble Navigation's stock value soared as a result...Military sales…had fueled the company's meteoric rise in 1990 and 1991…”
--from the Gale Directory of Company Histories

“GPS…is a crucial wartime technology for U.S. forces in Iraq.
“The military relies on the Global Positioning System to direct the kind of precision-guided "smart bombs" that were used in the opening air assault on Iraq…GPS receivers also are widely deployed among ground forces, allowing them to better navigate the desert terrain and track their precise locations, even during blinding sandstorms.

“…Before the full GPS system was operational, the United States used laser-guided bombs that were affected by rain, clouds and sandstorms. But in Kosovo in 1999 and Afghanistan in 2002, the United States deployed a new generation of GPS-guided bombs…”

--from a March 20, 2003 San Francisco Chronicle article

“Trimble Military and Advanced Systems Inc., Sunnyvale, Calif., (FA8807-13-D-0017) is being awarded a $6,712,500 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for acquisition of Trimble GPS receivers. The location of the performance is Sunnyvale, Calif. Work is expected to be completed by December 2017. The contracting activity is SMC/GPK, Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif. Contract involves Foreign Military Sales. (Air Force Contract).”

– from a Dec. 10, 2012 U.S. Department of Defense press release

“The School of International Affairs (SIA) has become, in the space of a. few years, one of Columbia's largest, and most important divisions….In 1967, the School listed a Faculty and staff of over 150 members, which included some of the most prestigious -- and powerful -- figures in the Columbia community….. The purpose of the SIA has never been in doubt: to train experts in international affairs and foreign areas for administrative positions in America's expanding overseas empire…. “



--from NACLA’s 1968 pamphlet, Who Rules Columbia?

Columbia University’s Rockefeller-Trimble Military and Advanced Systems’ Connection: Trilateral Commission’s Merit Janow Named Columbia SIPA Dean—Conclusion

For nearly 100 years, Trilateral Commission founder David Rockefeller Sr. and other members of the Rockefeller Dynasty have obtained and retained much wealth and special influence in the world of U.S. business, politics, culture and higher education as a result of their family ownership—or control via their various “non-profit” foundations, banks or family investment firms—of stock in U.S.-based transnational oil/energy corporations like ExxonMobil and Chevron/Texaco/Unocal.

And according to a 13 FHR filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission [SEC] for the period ending March 31, 2013 made by the Rockefeller & Co./Rockefeller Financial Services firm on whose board of directors the new Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs [SIPA] dean—Trilateral Commission member Merit Janow—has sat in recent years, over $173 million worth of Chevron/Texaco/Unocal stock and over $92 million worth of ExxonMobil stock are currently owned or controlled by Rockefeller & Co./Rockefeller Financial Services.

In addition, the stock portfolio of Rockefeller & Co./Rockefeller Financial Services includes large chunks of stock in corporations such as Google, Microsoft, JP Morgan Chase, Apache Corporation, Apple, Boeing, BP, Coca-Cola, Comcast, Con Edison, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Halliburton, IBM, Merck, Royal Dutch Shell, Wells Fargo, Wal-Mart and Trimble Navigation Limited/Trimble Military and Advanced Systems (on whose board of directors Columbia SIPA Dean Janow has also sat in recent years).

Coincidentally, Trimble Military and Advanced Systems has apparently manufactured weapons that were used by the U.S. military to wage war overseas since 2001 on behalf of the special corporate interests of transnational oil/energy corporations such as Chevron/Texaco/Unocal and ExxonMobil, in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq. On May 13, 2002, for example, Trimble Navigation/Trimble Military and Advanced Systems was awarded a $2.1 million military development contract to supply GPS technology for Raytheon’s Miniature Airborne GPS Receiver MAGR 2000 for use in a variety of U.S. and Allied military aircraft including the MG-53E Sea Dragon, F016 Fighting Falcon, and E-2c Hawkeye. And on September 26, 2002, Trimble was also awarded a contract from Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR), Special Missions Branch. (end of article)

Hidden History of Texas: 1954-1973--Part 17

Between 1950 and 1970, the number of people who lived in Texas increased from 7,711,194 to 11,196,730. Although the percentage of people living Texas who were African-Americans decreased from 13 to 12 percent between 1950 and 1970, the number of African-Americans who lived in Texas increased from 977,458 to about 1.4 million during the same period. And by 1970 the percentage of people living in Texas who were Latino was now 18 percent, as the number of Latino people who lived in Texas increased from about 1 million to about 2 million between 1950 and 1970. But the number of people of Jewish religious background who lived in Texas in the early 1970s was still only about 71,000.

By 1970, 80 percent of all people in Texas lived in urban cities or towns. Between 1950 and 1970, for example, the number of people living in Houston increased from 596,163 to 1,232,802 and the number of people living in Dallas increased from 434,462 to 844,401; while the number of people who lived in Austin by 1970 was now 250,000 and around 43,000 students now attended the University of Texas in Austin . Around 317,000 African-Americans lived in Houston by 1970; and by 1970, around 210,000 African-Americans now lived in Dallas . Of  Beaumont ’s residents in 1970, about 30 percent were also now African-American. In addition, over 3 million people who lived in Texas in 1970 had not been born in Texas . But only 1,092,596 of these 3 million “transplants” or migrants to Texas had not been born in the southern region of the United States .

Despite the increase in civil rights movement and New Left student and counter-cultural activism that developed in Texas between 1953 and the late 1960s, during the 1950s some of the ultra-right and/or ultra-rich folks in Texas (who had made big money from Texas’s oil industry in the 1930s and 1940s) apparently began using some of their surplus wealth to both begin building a “New Right” conservative right-wing movement in the United States and to exercise a special political influence over the Republican Eisenhower White House. As Bryan Burrough’s The Big Rich recalled:


“In 1955, with money raised from his father and friend, including a Houston oilman named Lloyd Smith, [William F.] Buckley would found The National Review, which became the crucible for conservative thoughts…The Old family friend confirmed rumors that [former Columbia University and U.S. President Dwight D.] Eisenhower invested with [Sid] Richardson beginning sometime during World War II… Texas oilmen smelled a winner in Eisenhower. By one estimate Richardson funneled about $1 million into the campaign, not including $200,000 to cover Eisenhower’s various stays at the Commodore Hotel in New York or his expenses during the Republican convention in Chicago …”

Coincidentally, in their 1968 book, The Case Against Congress, Jack Anderson and Drew Pearson noted that “the upkeep of the Eisenhower farm” in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania “was paid for by three oilmen,” “during his 8 years in the White House, Dwight Eisenhower did more for the nation’s private oil and gas interests than any other President,” and “he encouraged and signed legislation overriding a Supreme Court decision giving offshore oil to the Federal Government.”

Also coincidentally, Texas Gov. John Connally, who had been employed by Texas oil billionaire Sid Richardson during the 1950s, helped plan JFK’s ill-fated visit to Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963 (and was, himself, hit by gunfire on that day). As even the Warren Commission Report noted:

“The basic decision on the November trip to Texas was made at a meeting of President Kennedy, Vice-President Johnson and Governor Connally on June 5, 1963 at the Cortez Hotel in El Paso, Texas…The three agreed that the President would come to Texas in late November 1963…When Governor Connally called at the White House on Oct. 4 to discuss the details of the visit, it was agreed that the planning of events in Texas would be left largely to the Governor…Shots fired from a rifle mortally wounded President Kennedy…Mrs. Connally heard a second shot fired and pulled her husband down into her lap…Governor Connally…cried out, `Oh, no, no, no. My God, THEY are going to kill us ALL.’”

And, a former college roommate of Texas Gov. Connally, Henry Wade, was, also coincidentally, Dallas ’s District Attorney on Nov. 22, 1963. Harrison Edward Livingstone even made the following allegation about the historical role of some influential folks from Texas on U.S. national politics in the 1960s in his High Treason 2: The Great Cover-Up:

“The conspiracy that killed President Kennedy was at least to some extent hatched and operated out of Dallas/Fort Worth. The plotters controlled the police and the city government there. Numerous of their relatives and connections were in the military and in the CIA…Some of them, like General Charles Cabell of Dallas [whose brother Earle Cabell was the Mayor of Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963], had been fired by Kennedy. The Chief of the Western Hemisphere Division, David Atlee Phillips, and numerous others from the CIA were from Dallas or Fort Worth .”

The Big Rich also indicated the long-range impact that H.L. Hunt’s right-wing LIFELINE radio network of the 1950s and early 1960s apparently had on the drift of U.S. domestic politics after the late 1970s:

“…LIFELINE was in many ways ahead of its time. Its wedding of fundamentalist Protestantism and right-wing politics, not to mention its crusade against `big government’ and Wall Street greed, came 20 years before the Christian Right’s emergence in the late 1970s…By the early 1960s its broadcasts could be heard on 354 stations in 47 states…”

By 1973, corporations like IBM, Texas Instruments, Tracor and Motorola were utilizing the labor of a lot of workers in Texas —and often some lucrative Defense Department war contracts—to make a lot of big money in Texas . Motorola, for example, employed 6,000 workers in Austin by 1973; and Texas Instruments “began business in Austin in 1966 with a Defense System engineering operation” and the first TI-owned building in Austin “was completed in 1968 at 2601 North Lamar and continued the expansion of Defense Systems engineering and drafting,” according to David Humphrey's Austin: An Illustrated History. Yet two years later student and non-student anti-war activists in Austin were still able to mobilize over 25,000 people to participate in the then-largest anti-war demonstration in Austin ’s history in May 1970. But as a result of LBJ’s decision to begin a bombing campaign in Southeast Asia and order hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops to Vietnam in 1965, 3,415 people from Texas ended up being killed in action during the Vietnam War.

Coincidentally, during the 1970s Texas Instruments was also the third-largest non-unionized company in the USA . And according to the 1980 edition of Milton Moskowitz, Michael Katz and Robert Levering’s book Everybody’s Business: The Irreverent Guide To Corporate America, labor organizers who had “spent 25 years and $3 million trying to make inroads” said there was then no union at Texas Instruments because the company had “one of the most effective anti-union operations in the country;” and during the 1970s, “Texas Instruments employees were paid 25 percent less than comparable IBM workers across town,” “had to work mandatory overtime and 2 Saturdays a month,” and “were afraid to talk about a union.”

Hidden History of Texas--1890-1920--Part 4

(This article was originally posted on The Rag Blog on Mar. 13, 2012)

It was during the 1890-1920 historical period that an oil industry first began to develop in Texas. As Randolph Campbell recalled in his book, Gone To Texas, “significant commercial production [in Texas] did not begin until 1894, when well drillers seeking water near Corsicana struck oil instead,” and “production in the Spindletop field [near Beaumont], which reached 17,500,000 barrels in 1902, created the state’s first great oil boom.”

Yet, “in spite of the major discoveries, Texas [still] stood only sixth in the nation in oil production in 1909,” according to the same book. And most people who lived in Texas did not benefit from the development of its oil industry between 1894 and 1920. As Vanity Fair magazine correspondent Bryan Burrough observed in his 2009 book, The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes:

“If Spindletop created an oil industry for Texas, little of it ended up controlled by Texans. The big money of Spindletop was initially split between groups of powerful Texas businessmen and seasoned oilmen from back east. One Texas faction was an alliance of Austin politicians and Gulf Coast attorneys led by the former governor Jim Hogg, who acquired a valuable lease on Spindletop hill for the bargain price of $180,000 in July 1901, six months after the first gush...

“The strange new infrastructure of Texas oil -- the storage tanks, the pipelines, the refineries -- was controlled by eastern interests... By 1920, two decades after Spindletop, the discovery of oil hadn’t changed Texas much... What oil was pumped from Texas fields was still largely controlled by eastern interests...”

  Between 1891 to 1895 Democratic Governor Jim “Boss” Hogg rhetorically “fought against the use of corporate funds in politics, for equalities of taxation, and for the suppression of organized lobbying,” and “demanded steps to make `corporate control of Texas’ impossible,” according to Antonia Juhasz’s 2008 book The Tyranny of Oil.

In the same book Juhasz also recalled that when Hogg was the attorney general of Texas he had written “the nation’s second antitrust law and put it to work against Standard Oil,” and “while governor, he tried to extradite [John D.] Rockefeller from New York to stand trial in Texas.” As a result, “the largely `Standard-free-zone’ established in Texas allowed for independent oil companies, such as Gulf and Texaco, to develop outside of Standard Oil’s grip in what would emerge as the most oil-rich state in the nation.”

According to The Tyranny of Oil, the financing for the drilling in the Spindletop field where oil first gushed out on January 10, 1901, “came from Pittsburgh’s Andrew and Richard Mellon,” and “the Mellon family ultimately forced everyone else out,” before merging the 1901-founded Guffey Petroleum and Gulf Refining oil firms into the Gulf Oil Corporation in 1901.

Financing for the drilling by the Texas Fuel Company (that was founded in 1901 and later changed its name to Texaco) “came from Lewis Lapham of New York, who owned U.S. Leather, the centerpiece of the leather trust, and John Gates, a Chicago financier,” as well as from a New York investment banker named Arnold Schlaet.

It was also during the 1890s that an Austin writer named William Sydney Porter -- who later, under the pen name of O. Henry, became famous in New York City as a writer of short stories with surprise endings -- briefly published a weekly newspaper in Austin called The Rolling Stone -- over 70 years before Jann Wenner started to publish his Rolling Stone magazine in the Bay Area in the late 1960s.

As University of Auburn Professor Emeritus for American Literature Eugene Current-Garcia noted in his 1993 book O.Henry: A Study of the Short Fiction:

“O. Henry and his partner... renamed their paper The Rolling Stone... It was never a commercial success, surviving only a single year with an alleged circulation peak of 1,500, but the fact that O. Henry managed to keep it going at all at times virtually single-handedly -- was a remarkable feat in itself. Each week he filled its eight pages with humorous squibs and satirical barbs on persons and events of local interest...

“The portable humor sheet quietly rolled off its last issue on Mar. 30 1895, and was soon forgotten until its creator’s worldwide fame a few decades later made of it a collector’s item... For in his... little news-sheet -- O. Henry’s first published body of work -- lay the foundation stones of his unique short fiction edifice: his themes, plots, methods and style.”

 

Bahrain & Big Oil's Pre-1962 Special Interests

Harvey O’Connor’s 1962 Monthly Review Press book, World Crisis in Oil, contained the following reference to Bahrain and the transnational oil companies’ special economic interests in Bahrain, prior to 1962:

“In the split-up of the Standard Oil Trust in 1911, the California company inherited the Pacific Coast properties…British fumbling and the energetic intervention of the State Department transformed the California company into one of the partners in the world cartel. It began on the island of Bahrain, lying off the Arabian coast but long claimed by Iran. In 1925 a British group obtained a concession from the ruler which was transferred to an American group two years later. In 1928 Standard of California [now known as Chevron Texaco] appeared as the owner of the concession, to the consternation of the Colonial Office which could only regard this as a form of poaching on Imperial preserves, for the Sheikh’s foreign relations were shepherded from London. At this point the State Department stepped in, and the Colonial Office was obliged by 1930 to concede Standard’s position in Bahrain. While Bahrain’s oil reserves are not considerable, their advantageous location next to deep water eliminated the need for costly inland exploration and pipe lines…

“…In 1880 the [Bahrain] Ruler had declared his dependence on Britain, the better among other things to shield him from the Persians [Iranians] who claimed the island as their own…

“…The Bahrain Petroleum Company (Bapco), a Canadian subsidiary of Standard of California, took over in 1929. It was stipulated that all contacts with the Sheikh must be made through the local Political Agent, that at least one director must be British and persona grata to the Colonial Office, that the chief local representative must be approved by it, and as many employees as possible be British or Bahraini. A concession was signed with the Sheikh, and amended in 1940 to include the entire island and its offshore. In 1932 oil was discovered.

“Bahrain, while not important in itself as an oil producer, with an output of around 15 million barrels a year , proved to be the key to Arabia and its hidden wealth. Standard of California looked across the narrow strait and proceeded to obtain its golden concession from Ibn Saud, by then ruler of Saudi Arabia…

“Bahrain Petroleum Company became a unit in 1936 of the California Texas Oil Corporation (Caltex) when Texaco became a partner with Standard of California in its Bahrain-Arabian enterprises. Minor though Bahrain might be in the Caltex scheme of things, the royalties were soothing to the hitherto impecunious Sheikh. At first he got 14 cents a barrel, later 29 cents, and then in 1952 the 50-50 pattern. From a mere $8,800 in 1933, royalties mounted to $3.3 million in 1950 and to $13 million in 1959…

“Because Bahrain, under the protection of British guns, afforded a safer haven for such a venture, a refinery was built with a capacity of 155,000 b/d to which Arabian oil was piped under the Gulf as the island’s own production was small…

“The company employed Bahrainis as far as possible, but with the development of other oil areas in the Gulf, the trained Bahrainis tended to succumb to the lure of higher wages elsewhere, while their places were taken by Indians, Pakistanis, and Iranians. As in Kuwait, the Sheikh divided his income into three parts, one for himself and his family, one for the sheikhdom, and the rest for investment in London. In a small territory with a population somewhat over 100,000 [prior to 1960], the oil revenues devoted to social needs produced a town with amenities—schools, hospitals, electricity—which have resulted in Manama becoming a kind of resort frequented by foreigners from Arabia and Qatar…

“Bapco was a minor pearl in the crown of Standard of California and Texaco. Capitalized in 1929 at $100,000, by 1947 its earned surplus totaled $55 million. The gladsome profits were made possible by production costs of 25 cents for oil selling then at $1.05-1.15 a barrel. As Bapco was registered as a Canadian company, it paid no income taxes to the Untied States; Caltex as a Bahamian company was likewise exempt.

“The rise of nationalistic pan-Arab feeling has been particularly noteworthy in Bahrain…In 1954 a general strike demanded some measure of political liberty and curbing of the Sheikh’s powers with improvements in public health and education. The 1956 strike was highlighted by demands for the dismissal of the Sheikh’s British adviser, Sir Charles Dalrymple Belgrave, who had imposed censorship on the three Bahrain newspapers. The British reacted swiftly to protect their navel and air bases on Bahrain, by exiling the nationalist leader. He had demanded the enactment of a civil and criminal code (hitherto non-existent), elections and a legislative council, better use of oil royalties, and an end to immigration to leave more jobs for Bahrainis in their own country. Many work in Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar.

“…The Suez affair in November sparked demonstrations in Bahrain that resulted in the jailing of the nationalist leaders late in the year…

“Although the first of the Arabian oil to be found, Bahrain’s will also be the first exhausted. The 300-million-barrel reserve is expected to last no more than 20 years, barring unexpected discoveries. After that, most of the $15-million annual oil revenues will cease and the Sheikh may have to enact an income tax and cut expenditures. He has stashed away some $20 million in London, yielding some $650,000 a year, so he will not be destitute.

“A sandspit named HMS Jufair is the headquarters of the British Persian Gulf Command…The U.S. Middle East Squadron also has office space on `HMS Jufair’…”

Gulf + Chevron + Texaco + Unocal = Chevron

In 1990, Everybody's Business: An Almanac recalled:

"Gulf used to lift anywhere from 1 million to 3 1/2 million barrels a day from Kuwait. So their daily profit was more than $1 million--from Kuwait alone...Gulf loaded its Kuwaiti oil on their tankers and sold it around the world. They became Japan's number 1 oil supplier."

And, according to the 2008 book by Antonia Juhasz, The Tyranny of Oil:

"...The largest merger [of the 1980s]...was...when Chevron purchased Gulf Oil for a record-breaking $13.3 billion in 1985...

"...It was the first merger between members of the exclusive Seven Sisters. It was also the largest merger in corporate history at the time, whereby the fourth-largest oil company in the nation was purchased by the fifth-largest company...Overnight the merger nearly doubled Chevron's worldwide crude reserves to about 4 billion barrels and increased its natural gas reserves by three-quarters. The merger also made Chevron the number one refiner and gasoline retailer in the United States, giving it thirty-four refineries and close to 30,000 service stations worldwide.

"Chevron added exploration and production projects where it was already operating, such as in the Gulf of Mexico, Canada, and the North Sea, as well as in West Africa, where Gulf's reserves suddenly advanced the company to a leading position. Chevron also acquired Gulf's other assets, including the Pittsburg & Midway Coal Mining Company and Warren Petroleum, a manufacturer and a seller of natural gas liquids, respectively. The FTC [Federal Trade Commission responsible for preventing monopolization of U.S. oil industry by a few giant transnational corporations] hardly blinked..."

In its 1989 Annual Report, Chevron reported:

"Chevron International Oil Company purchases most of the 750,000 barrels of oil that Chevron imports daily. As part of its strategy to diversify Chevron's sources of crude oil, the company now buys large volumes from Mexico and Iraq in addition to its long-established sources in Saudi Arabia..."

But, not surprisingly,as The Tyranny of Oil observed:

"...After more than one hundred years of `independence,' Texaco became part of the Standard Oil fold when its 2001 merger with Chevron was given the green light...

"...In the case of Chevron and Texaco, the two wanted to move more aggressively into `lucrative but highly risky deepwater offshore projects in West Africa, Brazil and the Caspian Sea.'..

"The merged company briefly went by the name ChevronTexaco, but reverted back to Chevron in 2005, the same year it purchased the Union Oil Company of California (Unocal) for $18.2 billion. The Unocal purchase brought ChevronTexaco 1.7 billion new barrels of crude, increasing its total reserves by about 15 percnt. Unocal had significant holdings in the U.S. Gulf Coast, in the Caspian Sea, and in Asia-Pacific.

"The mergers propelled Chevron to the powerful position of second-largest oil company in the United States, third-largest U.S. corporation, and seventh-largest company in the world..."

Will Big Oil Offshore Drilling Produce More Big Oil Spills Offshore?

In her 2008 book,The Tyranny of Oil: The World's Most Powerful Industry--And What We Most Do To Stop It, Antonia Juhasz explained why offshore oil drilling by Big Oil was likely to produce offshore accidents, spills and explosions in places like the Gulf of Mexico:

"Offshore drilling is a Herculean technological and financial feat. All too often, however, technology proves inadequate, appropriate financial investments are not made, and accidents happen. Given the size and scale of these facilities, even a minor incident can have catastrophic impacts. Accidents, spills, leaks, fires, explosions, and blowouts are far too frequent occurences that have led to the deaths of hundreds of workers.

"Many of the platforms operating off the United States and in international waters were built in the 1960s. Many are twenty, thirty, or even forty years old. Even with new facilities, however, deadly and dangerous accidents are frequent. According to the most recent statistics available, compiled by the Department of the Interior, more than 70 incidents on the U.S. outer Continental Shelf resulted in oil spills between 1980 and 1999. In California alone, at least 5 major spills occurred on offshore platforms belonging to Exxon and Chevron, among others, from 1991 to 1997. Oil is extremely toxic, and current cleanup methods are incapable of removing more than a small fraction of the oil spilled in marine waters.

"The causes of such incidents worldwide include human error, poor equipment, mechanical defects, structural failure, and earthquakes. An increasing problem is extreme weather, particularly hurricanes. As a result of these storms, offshore oil rigs and platforms are tipping, collapsing, exploding, and floating out to sea with increasing frequency. As global warming intensifies, weather conditions will become more extreme and such events will occur with greater frequency--further harming our oceans and threatening the safety of workers...

"Every major oil company has experienced serious accidents on rigs across the United States and around the world. It is estimated that nearly 600 people have died in them worldwide since 1965...

"...Today our nation is once again ruled by a handful of corporate oil interests...Any formula designed to lessen the control of Big Oil over our government and the world's most vital natural resources must therefore consider the breakup of the nation's largest oil corporations, the spawn of Standard Oil: Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Conoco/Phillips, Marathon, Valero, Shell-US, and BP America..."