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THE
SEVENTEENTH MOVE
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There were a dozen tired players
seated around the circular table in the Gaming Center.
A bell sounded. A cheer went up in the Gaming Center.
The consoles all flashed the same message:
MOVE 16: KING OF ZEMBLIA RETURNS. CRISES OVER.
"Well done, Gentlemen," Tracy said, applauding the players.
"Move 16 concludes the Game of Nations. Victory, we can
all agree, is sweet, even if it is only a game. I want
to thank Professor Foxx for guiding us though this very
enlightening exercise in crises-management."
The dozen players looked more relieved then exhilarated.
The last round of the game had lasted just over five hours.
The fatigue showed in their faces. All but Professor Lazblum,
who had replaced Professor Abraham in the third round,
made a quick exit. Lazblum chatted with Tracy, then made
a "V" sign to Foxx, as if to suggest that Foxx's promised
position at Yale was in the bag.
Foxx smiled back to Lazblum and Tracy, as they straggled
out of the room. Despite the "Victory" gesture, he suspected
he would never get the tenured job at Yale or anywhere
else. Ever since he had received Christina's letter from
Lisbon, he knew the score. Tracy wanted to keep him in
the thrall of the CIA and he would wreck his academic
career if he tried to slip off the hook. He would use
those obscene photographs, and whatever else it took,
to keep him in the Game of Nations.
Christina's letter , which he had reread a dozen times,
by now had been indelibly inscribed in his mind. "As much
affection as I have for you, and always will, I cannot
see you again. I could never respect a man that let himself
be used like a dishcloth," her letter had began. "Make
no mistake about it, they have used you, in dirtier ways
than you can imagine, for the profit of the oil companies.
You let them." Without saying how she obtained them, she
went on to provide him with details of the behind-the-scene
machinations of the oil companies. "If you have any doubt
about how they will continue to use you for their slimy
designs, open the enclosed envelope." She concluded "I
wouldn't say what they did to me. I hope you can find
some way to redeem yourself, but I doubt you will have
the courage."
In the enclosed envelope, wrapped in some documents about
the incorporation of a Luxembourg company called Satrap,
he had found pictures of him and Christina emulating the
Kama Sutra in the Hay-Adams hotel. Tracy had rigged their
room, he had then realized, with a hidden camera. His
only purpose could be blackmail. Had the CIA also had
equally compromising snapshots of him with his tutee?
Of course, he hade prudently assumed. So Tracy had allowed
him to lie on the lie detector test to further compromise
himself. What a tangled web he had enmeshed himself in.
He had welled up with anger thinking of how Tracy had
charmed him into service with his Old Boy manner. He also
had understood instantly that Tracy had tried to blackmail
Christina into silence. Her words "redeem yourself" kept
repeating themselves in his mind, like a religious mantra.
Redeem himself, like an exchanged coupon. But how could
he redeem himself— and for what value?
The only advantage he had at this point, he thought, was
that they didn't know that he knew about their blackmail
plans. He wanted Tracy to believed he was still "on the
reservation," as Tracy once put it. So he had come to
Washington for this final round. He made all their moves,
now he needed more information before he could make his
own move.
Foxx left the Gaming Center, took the elevator back down
to the main floor and headed for the classified research
library. It was empty, except for a hairy man sitting
at a long table flipping through a foot-high stack of
papers and the buxom red-headed librarian.
"Can I help you, sir?" asked the red head.
Foxx displayed his credentials. After he had passed the
lie-detector test, The CIA had approved a need-to-know
clearance for him on matters pertaining to Iran. "I need
to see the reports on the status of the oil industry in
Iran."
"It will take a few minutes," she said. With a business-like
smile, she escorted him to a desk in an alcove, where
he sat at a small desk.
Ten minutes later, she returned pulling a cart of documents,
"This is our entire Iran oil file."
He picked up a thick loose-leaf binder, entitled "DEPARTMENT
OF JUSTICE: INVESTIGATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL OIL CARTEL."
It began:
"Following cancellation of the wartime suspension of antitrust
investigations and prosecution of the oil industry, investigation
of the worldwide cartel activities was resumed. Investigative
efforts revealed the outline of a world petroleum cartel
formed in 1928 by Anglo-Iranian Oil, Royal Dutch Shell,
and Standard Oil of New Jersey. Over the succeeding years,
four other American companies joined the cartel, Standard
Oil of California, Mobil, Texaco, and Gulf. It appears
that the uninterrupted extension of this basic cartel
agreement has resulted in a worldwide pattern in which
seven of the major oil companies (1) control all major
producing areas outside the United States; (2) control
all foreign refining operations; (3) effectively divide
world markets; (4) maintain noncompetitive world prices
for oil; and (5) control all foreign pipelines and world
tanker transportation facilities."
He moved on another fold. It contained secret history
of the oil cartel compiled by the CIA's Office of Economic
Assessment. He traced out how the cartel had dominated
new oil discoveries in the Middle east, Asia or Latin
America from 1928 to 1951. They used consortiums. Each
time oil had been discovered, the cartel offered the government
of that country a deal in which a "consortium," made up
of selected cartel members, would get the concession for
the oil. If the country refused to accept that offer,
the cartel would deny that country the tankers to ship
the oil out of the country . As it turned out, almost
every country had accepted the deal and turned their oil
production over to the cartel's consortiums.
A special coda to the report had been prepared for Iran
after Mossadeq had broken the cartel's arrangement by
nationalizing his country's oil. It was labeled "NO
FORN," meaning "Not Releasable to Foreign Nationals."
It documented how the cartel how closed down Iran's oil
exports. In not only shut its refinery in Iran but it
withdrew all its tankers. By 1953, only a trickle of oil
flowed out of Iran.
The monthly update, attached to the report, showed that
the oil blockade had stopped, all but a a handful of independently-owned
charter tankers, from reaching Iran.
Foxx suddenly envisioned a way to redeem himself. He rushed
over to the librarian. "Do you have a file on the international
oil tanker fleet."
"It will take a minute, Dr. Foxx," Her red head, bobbing
behind the stacks, disappeared in the classified stacks.
Ten minutes later, he was reading a report entitled "National
Security Implications of Excess Tanker Capacity." It noted
that the shut-down of oil exports from Iran had greatly
diminished the demand for oil tankers, especially those
on short-term charter. Charter prices for these ships
had plunged by over ninety-percent in the past three months
and were expected to keep falling as long as the Iranian
crisis continued. Consequently, independent tanker owners,
unwilling to pay the cost of operating empty tankers,
had moth-balled large parts of their fleets. On appendix
listed the independent tanker owner who still had charter
ships operating. The largest was Aristotle Onassis.
By the time, the librarian came over to tell him the library
was closing, Foxx had come up with a possible seventeenth
move.
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