Overview

The untold story of how Exxon, Mobil, Chevron, and Texaco teamed up with the CIA and Department of State to thwart the plans of Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, who almost managed to reshape the Middle East. In 1954 Aristotle Onassis (long before he married Jacqueline Kennedy) made a bold business gamble: he tried to corner the crude oil shipping market by signing a deal with the King of Saudi Arabia. If it had worked, it would have reshaped the history of the Middle East. As it was, the proposed deal terrified British and U.S. oil companies and the Dulles brothers, who saw it as the first move in the nationalization of Saudi oil. Complicating things was the burgeoning Arab nationalist movement led by Egypt's newly elected president, Gamal Nasser. And of course there were the Soviets, now without Stalin, eager to build influence in the region. This little-known story about the collision of nationalism, money, celebrity, and oil sheds new light on the tangled history of the Middle East. Drawing on the author's immense knowledge of the Middle East and original research incorporating unexplored declassified documents, the book is an eye-opener for students of U.S. foreign policy, anyone interested in the global oil business, and scholars and historians of the role of the U.S. in the Arab world.

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9798765121054

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Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. * Choice *

Author Information

Thomas W. Lippman has been writing about Saudi Arabia for 40 years. He is a former Middle East bureau chief at the Washington Post and author of seven previous books, including Saudi Arabia on the Edge.

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