The Evening Star (March 13, 1946)
ON THE RECORD —
Stakes in Pauley case much higher than tidelands oil
By Dorothy Thompson
Possibly Mr. Edwin W. Pauley will have been given a testimonial regarding his “personal integrity.” There will probably be the usual exchange of “Dear Ed,” and “Dear Harry” for customary face-saving.
Nevertheless, Sens. Tobey of New Hampshire and Brewster of Maine, Republicans, have, I think, won out over Sen. Tydings of Maryland, Democrat. It is not to the advantage of the interest Mr. Pauley represents to continue the hearings. Mr. Pauley has failed, and they, like the president, will probably quietly drop him.
It is not only in despotic states that those who fail are liquidated by the forces whose faithful agents they have been. It is usually the agents, not the forces themselves, who take the rap.
Sens. Tobey and Brewster have done a fine job, but the credit does not go to the Republican Party. There have been hidden Republican pressures on the side of Mr. Pauley as powerful as the open Democratic pressures. Mr. Pauley represents a concept transcending and exploiting both parties – depending on which is in power. In this concept the state is an instrument, not of the people, but of the economic “empires” which, by planting fifth columns at key points within the state, can control its major policies.
The empire represented by Mr. Pauley – with personal integrity, perhaps, within the framework of fidelity to this concept – is oil; specifically, it is Standard Oil of California. And oil is not merely an empire within the United States. It is a world-wide empire. Indeed, the greatest assets of Mr. Pauley’s bosses lie outside our borders, in one of the politically most critical centers of the world – the sands of Saudi Arabia, where are buried in calculable petroleum riches, developed and undeveloped.
To make the defense of these riches a cardinal point of American foreign policy is natural to the oil magnate’s mentality. Hence the desire – defeated after exposure – that the United States Government should assume responsibility for laying and protecting 1,250 miles of pipeline across half a dozen countries, the consent of those sheiks should be purchased by American agreement to maintain the backward political status quo. Hence the letter to Ibn Saud, “great and good friend,” dashing the hopes of and promises to the Palestine Jews.
Hence the concept of the primary responsibility of the American Navy and other armed forces to defend the overseas oil empire against, for instance, the Soviet Union, whose state capitalism is no less greedy for oil than is private capitalism. A reliable assistant secretary of the Navy to succeed the present secretary and, possibly, then to work for an Army-Navy merger under his leadership – what could be greater reinsurance for. this concept? The Navy plus oil! What could not be justified from that combination! For oil is the food of ships, and who would deny the Navy its sustenance?
The stakes in the Pauley case have been much higher than tidelands oil, or Elk Hills naval reserves. They involve such questions as the Atlantic Charter’s pledge of “equal access to raw materials.”
There is a great moral struggle on, involving the lives, human rights and standards of living of millions of the “common man” who fights all wars, dies for all causes, and in whose name all wars and causes are fought. The struggle is three-way, between despotic capitalism, subverting and suborning the democratic states; democracy, embracing, perhaps, forms and degrees of socialism and capitalism, but always upholding the integrity of popular government, and despotic communism.
Precisely because the struggle for the allegiances of mankind is so epochal must American democracy keep clean her hands. The other way lies war revolution and defeat.
The withdrawal of Mr. Pauley will not answer the question: What should American foreign policy protect – America, and with her humanity and law, or powerful private interests? Mr. Ickes, for all his attacks on Mr. Pauley, would do well to review his own past oil policies in the foreign field.
There is oil enough for all peoples in Arabia alone. There is oil to maintain 10th-century despots in Oriental grandeur, or help lift millions from ignorance, disease and want. There is oil for co-operation or for greed.
Sens. Tobey and Brewster, conservatives, have fought to maintain the sovereignty of the American Republic over its foreign policy and over internal pressures. They are therefore true “Republicans.”
They have been supported by some oil men. It is not true that all capitalists put private interests above the nation, or see the two as synonymous, or that the confusion of national interest and self-interest is a monopoly of any class.
But the matter is not settled by the withdrawal of Mr. Pauley. Pauleys come and go. They are not the players, but only castles, kings or pawns in the great power game.