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.

No matter what the questions or the inference, Mr. Farish and Mr. Howard, two top executives of Standard Oil (now known as Exxon) appear to have some kind of answer. Now we learn why they thought they could sell the Standard Oil refineries to the Hitler Government at a time when America was at war with Germany. Their explanations on this should be pretty interesting…...

Here they referred to a chart everyone supposedly received.

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 2 hour report made to the Department.”

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

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

Mr. Howard: “I have not.”

Mr. Fulton: “This last week?”

Mr. Howard: “No; the State Department did not give me a copy of the report.”

Mr. Fulton: “But the chart?”

Mr. Howard: “No, sir; nor the chart. They gave me a paraphrase of the report.”

Mr. Fulton: “That is all I had on that.”

Senator Kilgore: “Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask just one question to clarify those French hydrogenation plants. You closed that part of your statement with the words: ‘The matters in question referred to occupied France.' Is that meant to imply there were hydrogenation plants placed in unoccupied Vichy France at that time by any of your subsidiaries?”

Mr. Farish: “No, sir.”

Senator Kilgore: “All right, I just wanted to clarify that.”

Acting Chairman Mead: “Mr. Farish, before we proceed further – and I presume we may have to take a recess – in connection with the offer to buy Hungarian properties, you left the impression, with me at least, that the Government turned down a very attractive offer made by Farben in the amount of $24 million in gold, and that the Treasury refused to allow you to consummate the sale, and that the Government would have been the gainer.”

Mr. Farish: “Not the Government – the American Nation.”

Acting Chairman Mead (reading): ‘Our view was that the United States would be the gainer.’ “It occurred to me at that time that the impression might be gained that the authorities of the Treasury just arbitrarily turned down what was a very valuable gain for the country. I presume they had in mind, among other matters of interest, the fact that your company might take a substantial loss in the transaction. They might have taken into consideration the fact that there wasn’t a shortage of gold coming into the country, it being buried down in Fort Knox. They might have taken into consideration many matters that would, if properly analyzed, revealed the fact that the Government wouldn’t have been the gainer by that transaction. But at first blush……….”

Mr. Farish (interposing): “We are paying for gold right along, sir. We are buying it.”

Acting Chairman Mead: “That is perfectly all right.”

Mr. Farish: “That doesn’t fit in with the thought that it isn’t worth something.”

Acting Chairman Mead: “And you’re taking a loss on transactions where losses can be substantiated. There might have been a substantial loss.”

Mr. Farish: “It was a loss to us.”

Mr. Fulton: “How much of a loss would that have been, Mr. Farish?”

Mr. Farish: “To us?”

Mr. Fulton: “Had you taken the $24 million how much of a loss would you have been able to set up for tax purposes?”

Mr. Farish: “On our properties? I don’t know. I had never even considered that.”

Acting Chairman Mead: “Perhaps the Treasury did.”

Mr. Farish: “We had a gain, Mr. Gallagher suggests to me. We would have had to pay taxes on that money if we had gotten it, because our properties didn’t cost us that much.”

Acting Chairman Mead: “I just wanted to bring out the fact that the Treasury probably looked at all sides of the question before they turned it down.”

Mr. Farish: “I don’t know what they did, sir. I know this. There were three or four of the high officials of the Government who thought our position was sound and that we ought to be permitted to make the trade. If you please, several arrangements of that kind were made and approved by the Treasury before we came to bat. It just so happened that when we came to bat, the sum was larger, and some formal decision was going to have to be made, and we were the ones who brought about the decision that no more gold for foreign properties in alien countries would be taken. We just happened to be the sufferers.”

Acting Chairman Mead: “And I just merely point out that the Treasury Department had good reason, perhaps for making that decision.”

Mr. Farish: “I don’t think they had, sir. I don’t know what their reasons were, but I don’t think they had. They just didn’t want to take any more gold for foreign properties.”

Mr. Fulton: “Had you not had that transaction studied by your lawyers from a tax standpoint?”

Mr. Farish: “I don’t think we had.”

Mr. Fulton: “You would prefer to go through with a $24 million transaction without having it submitted for income tax advice?”

Mr. Farish: “Yes, sir; because we thought we were getting something for nothing.”