On the Right

New York, Oct. 10—In the tumult and the shouting of the past ten days one has the sense of having lost all idea of economic integration. Highly intelligent people are going about confused over what is going on in the complicated quarrels in Washington having to do with energy. Quite understandably. Concerning all of which, a few comments:

1) The fundamental problem is untouched by all the wrangling over Mr. Carter’s energy bill. That problem is the oligopolistic leverage of OPEC over world oil. Since the crack of doom sounded from Saudi Arabia after the Yorn Kippur War in 1973, no policy has been arrived at to cope with the quadrupled price of oil coming from the OPEC nations. At a political level, there is an accommodationist fatalism that is absolutely startling. It is as though God had announced, in November of 1973, that He was going to change the seasons around a bit. One professor from Johns Hopkins proposed we should consider military action against Saudi Arabia if absolutely necessary. He was put in Coventry. The Dutch were finally forgiven by the Arabs for siding so conspicuously with Israel during the engagement, and were magnanimously permitted to buy oil at $12 per barrel. The British were secretly enjoying the whole operation because they knew that very soon they would themselves be follow-profiteers of the great oil gouge. The United States meanwhile did nothing, and calmly permitted its imports of foreign oil to rise from one-third of national consumption to one-half.

About the Author

William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

New York, Oct. 10—In the tumult and the shouting of the past ten days one has the sense of having lost all idea of economic integration. Highly intelligent people are going about confused over what is going on in the complicated quarrels in Washington having to do with energy. Quite understandably. Concerning all of which, a few comments:

1) The fundamental problem is untouched by all the wrangling over Mr. Carter’s energy bill. That problem is the oligopolistic leverage of OPEC over world oil. Since the crack of doom sounded from Saudi Arabia after the Yorn Kippur War in 1973, no policy has been arrived at to cope with the quadrupled price of oil coming from the OPEC nations. At a political level, there is an accommodationist fatalism that is absolutely startling. It is as though God had announced, in November of 1973, that He was going to change the seasons around a bit. One professor from Johns Hopkins proposed we should consider military action against Saudi Arabia if absolutely necessary. He was put in Coventry. The Dutch were finally forgiven by the Arabs for siding so conspicuously with Israel during the engagement, and were magnanimously permitted to buy oil at $12 per barrel. The British were secretly enjoying the whole operation because they knew that very soon they would themselves be follow-profiteers of the great oil gouge. The United States meanwhile did nothing, and calmly permitted its imports of foreign oil to rise from one-third of national consumption to one-half.