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The ‘Sting’ 447

will take very important steps towards fulfilling this policy, and I hope he will succeed in
doing it for the benefit of the whole world.’

A day later Yamani had second thoughts and beat a quick retreat from his

pledge of unilateral Saudi action on prices. ‘We always like to act as part of a
group, not as an individual,’ he explained. ‘If we can convince the others [in
OPEC], we will reduce our prices.’ For good measure, he threw in his

customary warning about the ‘very serious trouble’ that would ensue if the
oil-consuming countries attempted to form a common front against OPEC.
‘We are in a very strong position; you [the consuming countries] cannot afford
any sort of confrontation.’
Three years later Yamani was still uttering the same melodious sounds,

though by this time the theme of price reduction had been replaced by that of
‘moderation’. In an address at the University of Edinburgh in November 1976
(such occasions have become commonplace, so eager is the scholarly world for

the light of his discourse) he explained yet again the reasons for the 1973
embargo and the price increases which accompanied it. The explanation called
for some strenuous reworking of recent history, but Yamani was equal to the
task. Rejecting with some indignation the unworthy suggestions which had
been put about that there was a connexion between the embargo and the price

increases, he told his audience:

It is true that the oil restrictions did cause a shortage which in turn led to a rise in market
pnees, but that was not our aim nor were we the main beneficiaries.... The truth of the
matter is that we did not for a moment seek to influence the market price of oil by
enforcing our embargo.

He dismissed as misguided the frequently voiced criticism that the steep rise in
oil prices had been detrimental to the poorer countries of the world. Such
criticism, he said, ‘conveniently overlooked the vast aid programmes estab­
lished by the oil producers’. Furthermore, he contended, one of the ‘blessings’

which had flowed from the politicizing of the oil trade and the raising of prices
to realistic’ levels had been the awakening of those Asian and African countries
w ich exported raw materials to the industrial world to the potentialities of
0 taining ‘realistic’ prices for their exports, also. Saudi Arabia, in fact, was

responsible for initiating the discussions on raw materials, technological aid
and financial assistance between the industrial nations and the under-
eveloped countries - the Conference on International Economic Co­
operation, or the ‘North-South dialogue’ - which had begun in Paris in
December 1975.

As for the huge financial surpluses which Saudi Arabia and the other oil
$ ates had amassed, they had never been employed, Yamani claimed, ‘in a
lished f^Ve °r threatening manner. Speaking for Saudi Arabia, it is an estab-

act now that the excess funds that we recycled in the money markets of