The secret history of the American empire: economic hit men, jackals, and the truth about global corruption by John Perkins

Author:John Perkins
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780525950158
Publisher: New York, NY : Dutton, c2007.
Published: 2008-04-29T04:00:00+00:00

It was a classic game of international chess. President Nixon asked Congress for $2.2 billion in aid to Israel on October 19. The next day, led by Saudi Arabia, Arab oil producers imposed a total embargo on oil shipments to the United States. At the time, few people perceived the cunning behind Washington's move, or the fact that it was driven by a determination to shore up a weakened dollar.

The impact was immense. The selling price of Saudi oil leaped to new records; by January 1, 1974, it had soared to nearly seven times its price four years earlier. The media warned that the U.S.

economy was on the verge of collapse. Long lines of cars formed at gas stations across the nation, while economists expressed fears of

170KING DOLLAR

the possibility of another 1929-style depression. Protecting our oil supplies had been a priority; suddenly, it became an obsession.

We know now that the corporatocracy played an active role in driving oil prices to these record highs. Although business and political leaders, including oil executives, feigned outrage, they were the puppet masters pulling the strings. Nixon and his advisors realized that the $2.2 billion aid package to Israel would force the Arabs into taking drastic actions. By supporting Israel, the administration engineered a situation that generated what was the craftiest and most significant EHM deal of the twentieth century.

The U.S. Treasury Department contacted MAIN and other firms with proven records as corporatocracy henchmen. Our assignment was twofold: to formulate a strategy to ensure that OPEC would funnel the billions of dollars we spent on oil back to U.S. companies and to establish a new "oil standard" that would replace the former "gold standard." We EHMs knew that the key to any such plan was Saudi Arabia; because it possessed more oil than any other country, it controlled OPEC; the Saudi "royal"

family was corrupt and highly vulnerable. Like other "kings" in the Middle East, t he Sauds understood the politics of colonialism.

Royalty had been bestowed on the House of Saud by the British.

Details behind the strategy I helped engineer—the Saudi Arabian Money-laundering Affair (SAMA)—are provided in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. In summary, as far as the media was concerned, the House of Saud agreed to three important conditions; it would: 1) invest a large portion of its petrodollars in U.S. government securities; 2) allow the U.S.

Treasury Department to use the trillions of dollars in interest from these securities to hire U.S. corporations to westernize Saudi Arabia; and 3) maintain the price of oil within limits acceptable to the corporatocracy. For its part, the U.S. government promised to keep the Saud family in power.

There was an additional agreement, one that made few headlines but was crucial to the corporatocracy's need to maintain the dollar

171THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN

EMPIRE

as the standard global currency. Saudi Arabia committed to trading oil exclusively in U.S. dollars. With the scratch of a pen, the dollar's sovereignty was reestablished. Oil replaced gold as the measure of a currency's value.

As

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