This piece began in KTB #153.

In the US, gasoline had been more than $2 per gallon in some areas. In Germany, gas had cost about 2 Marks per liter, a liter is a little more than a quart, a Mark is equal to about 50 cents, making gas in Germany equal to about $4/gal. Who is responsible?

Obviously, the big oil companies are trying to maximize their profits - but this is not the first time. Who can remember the so-called 'Arab Oil Embargo' of 1973? I remember it well, because I was Inventory Control Director at the corporate level of a major petrochemical company and I can assure you, there was no shortage of feedstock or petroleum at all. This contrived shortage allowed the company to raise their prices by 500% on both their industrial chemicals and the consumer products, including a nationally known brand of automotive anti-freeze. These products all use feedstock coming from petroleum and it was never in short supply.

Who gave us WWII? It was the 'Seven Sisters" in part. The 'Seven Sisters' were the world's petroleum companies, of which Standard Oil was the largest. The Chief Executive Officer of Shell Oil was so pro-Nazi that the British Government had to force him out in order to get fuel for their own military. In an interview in LIFE Magazine in 1940, the Chief Executive Officer of Texaco (Thorkold Reiber) stated that if any German U-boat Skipper saw a Texaco tanker helping the Allies, he had Reiber's permission to sink the Texaco tanker. But perhaps the one that made the most profit out of these world events was Standard Oil, today known as Exxon. When the German Luftwaffe bombed England during the Battle of Britain, they got fuel from Standard Oil. When the RAF went up to protect their homeland, they got their fuel from Standard, When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, they had fuel from Standard Oil in their tanks. CHARLES HIGHAM (35-1984) put all this in his book Trading with the Enemy but there is more -- and it is in the records of the United States Senate! What you read in this piece comes directly from the testimony of Hearings before a Special Committee investigating the National Defense Program during the 77th Congress, pursuant to Senate Resolution #71 in 1942.

The Committee met at 10:38am pursuant to adjournment on Friday, March 27 in Room 318, Senate Office Building with Senator James M. Mead presiding.

Here we watch Mr. Farish and Mr. Howard, two top executives of Standard Oil (now known as Exxon) try to tap dance around some rather tough questions from this Senate sub-committee that was trying to determine why Standard Oil was supplying fuel to the Axis and at this point, they were trying to explain a certain complex chart to the Senators.

Mr. Fulton: “Why was that left out?”

Mr. Howard: “Why, I assumed because the chart was already so complicated that neither you nor I can easily see what it means now.”

EDITOR NOTE – this chart showed the relationship between Standard Oil and the German conglomerate I.G. Farben with whom Standard had an agreement regarding various petroleum products such as gasoline, avgas, synthetic rubber and toluene, an ingredient in the high explosive called TNT.

Mr. Fulton: “Yet in handing it to the State Department, I believe you said, and I am quoting – it is believed that the chart will be found to be largely self-explanatory and to provide a convenient description of the control exercised over these industries in Germany.”

Mr. Howard: “In Germany?”

Mr. Fulton: “Yes; the control which Germany exercises over the industries in question.”

Mr. Howard: “I am sorry, I didn’t think you read that. I thought you read …..over the controls of these processes in Germany.”

Mr. Fulton: “That is correct.”

Mr. Howard: “The chart doesn’t have any reference to Germany in connection with Standard-I.G Company. Standard-I.G. had no German rights.”

Mr. Fulton: “But I am talking about the relations. As I understood your statement, you are presenting to this Committee, you are saying, and I am quoting from the statement – Fortunately the Department of State had in its files at Washington a statement of our relations with the I.G. on those patents which I had worked out with Ambassador Wilson in Berlin…..and which had been forwarded to him by Washington. I was trying to ascertain whether the State Department, no matter how carefully they looked at this chart, would have ascertained the fact that as to chemicals, particularly rubber, the control was in the German company.”

Mr. Howard: “Well, I can’t tell you what the State Department would have concluded from the chart, because the chart was accompanied with a report, following as explanation of some hours to the Ambassador and to his second secretary. They prepared that report, and I don’t know what they said about it.”

Mr. Fulton: “Did you see the report?”

Mr. Howard: “No; I never saw the report.”

Mr. Fulton: “I have what purports to be a copy of it, and it doesn’t contain ant reference whatever – if you care to read it – to the fact that you had in the I.G. a control over the rubber. That document is Exhibit #466.”

Mr. Howard: “If the purpose of your question, Mr. Fulton, is to indicate we were holding ourselves out as the owner of the synthetic rubber process in the United States, all I can say is that we never have held ourselves out as the owner of that until we acquired it.”

Mr. Fulton: “My purpose is simply to ascertain whether you informed the State Department at this time that your statement refers to the fact that you have given them information, if you informed the State Department of the majority control in the petroleum industry, including rubber.”

Mr. Howard: “I should think that I would, Mr. Fulton.”

Mr. Fulton: “It doesn’t appear in the information that you have furnished in the form of a chart, and it doesn’t appear in the Ambassador’s letter.”

EDITOR NOTE – Does it appear that these Standard Oil executives have more flim-flam than an old fashioned snake oil peddler?

Mr. Howard: “Well. I don’t think the Ambassador was concerned, nor was I concerned at the time, with the situation in the United States, which has always been in the control of the Government. What the Ambassador was concerned with was the situation in Germany, which was out of the control of this country, and that was the main purpose of the discussion.”

Mr. Fulton: “Of the Hague Agreement, which I understand you are tying in with this information you furnished the State Department? Because as I understood you in your statement, the Hague Agreement related more to the United States than it did to any place else.”

Mr. Howard: “The Hague Agreement related to the world outside of Germany.”

Mr. Fulton: “Yes, particularly outside of Germany.”

Mr. Howard: “Solely outside of Germany.”

Mr. Fulton: “And it is in that connection that you furnished this Committee the material that you furnished the State Department, is it not?”

Mr. Howard: “I referred the Committee to that only by saying that the Minister at the Hague telegraphed the Department in Washington, referring them to this memorandum as the reason for his request to send the assignments of patents by diplomatic courier in France.”

Mr. Fulton: “But as far as the State Department being informed of your relations, particularly of the question of who had control of it, that was not done in the two documents that are in the files of the State Department, was it?”

Mr. Howard: “I see no reference whatever to the detail of that arrangement in these documents. I would like to point out that you have here a chart and a one-page letter summarizing a two-hour report made to the Department.”

Mr. Fulton: “That is precisely the chart and the letter to which you referred in your statement. Is it not? The one at the bottom of page 11 in your statement?”

Mr. Howard: “That is the first time I have seen the chart since I left it, and the first time I have ever seen the report.”

Mr. Fulton: “That surprises me, as I understood you had received a copy from the State Department.”

These guys have more rebuttals than a telemarketer trying to sell you a five-year subscription to some magazine like Onion Growers Monthly that you neither want nor need. But these guys’ answers just make no sense to an intelligent person.

There is more double talk here than at a political convention.

Our next installment deals with the attempted sale of the Standard Oil refineries in Hungary to the German Government for $24,000,000 in gold and the repeated attempts of the State Department to stop the transaction.