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presented he would have broken off diplomatic relations with the United
Slates. It seems, all things considered, a fairly innocuous threat.
The action taken by Akins on this occasion would appear to have been

consistent with his behaviour throughout the period of the embargo. Four days
after its imposition he had urged ARAMCO to impress upon its parent
companies in the United States the need ‘to hammer home’ to the United States
government the point that ‘oil restrictions are not going to be lifted unless [the]
political struggle is settled in [a] manner satisfactory to [the] Arabs’. The
message, he said, should be delivered in a ‘clear unequivocal way’. Apart from

being a most peculiar recourse for an ambassador to employ to influence the
policy of his own government, Akins’s advice to ARAMCO clearly indicates
that the thought then uppermost in his mind was the necessity to placate the
Saudis. He can only have been confirmed in this opinion by what he heard from
Faisal’s own lips less than a fortnight later, when he presented his credentials.
The embargo and the restrictions on production would continue, Faisal told
him, until Israel withdrew from all Arab territory. Furthermore, the king

added, any increases in oil production in the future would be considered only
in the ‘right political atmosphere’, i.e. when all the Arab lands had been
recovered, the Palestinian problem had been resolved and an Arab flag flew
over the Arab quarter of Jerusalem. ‘I am an old man,’ he told Akins dolefully.
‘Before I die I want to pray in the Mosque of Omar.’

If the United States and the powers of Western Europe funked their duty in
1973> the major and independent oil companies did not. True to their character
as international companies, they discharged their responsibilities to their
customers conscientiously and fairly, allocating what oil was available on an
equitable basis so that no consuming country was made to suffer more than
another. The Netherlands was supplied with crude from Persia, Nigeria,
Venezuela and elsewhere - including, interestingly enough, Libya, and (so

rumour has it) the Soviet Union. Western Europe as a whole suffered a drop in
supplies of only 11 per cent during the period of the embargo, while the United
States experienced a fall of 6.9 per cent. The companies had to withstand a
good deal of pressure from countries on the Arabs’ ‘white list’ which saw no
reason why they should suffer any diminution of supplies at all. Canada, for

example, hinted at a curtailment of exports from her own oilfields to the
Middle West of the United States if she did not receive the quantity of
imported oil she wanted. She had her way, and her consumption of oil during
the embargo actually rose 6.5 per cent over what it had been before. So, also,
1 Japan s, though only by 1 per cent. Little appreciation of the sense of
responsibility and spirit of co-operation demonstrated by the oil companies
was expressed by the British or French governments, both of which fondly

e leved that they had secured themselves against any reduction in supplies by
1 eir furtive exchanges with the Arab oil potentates. Edward Heath, who was