Daniel Yergin

Well, what's going on at the same time, this political crisis in the United States called Watergate.

And the front page of the newspaper is not about, you know, we have tight oil supplies, we're running risks.

It's all about, you know, what did Richard Nixon do in terms of subverting the election and subverting the political process?

So there was just sort of inattention and I think that's one of the risks.

I think a lot about energy security as an issue and it tends to fall off the table until it hits you in the face.

Well, I think it was after World War II.

I mean, people had begun to know it, but during World War II, a famous geologist named Everett de Gaulle did a trip to the Middle East on behalf of the U.S.

government and came back and said the center of gravity of world oil is shifting to the Middle East.

Yeah.

So that then led to, but no one knew how much or anything, but they knew it was a strategic resource.

And by the way, they didn't want it to fall into the hands of the Russians.

That was a concern.

Sometimes people, most people don't know the first post-war crisis with the Soviet Union was over actually Iran and the Soviet Union making a grab for a part of Iran.

So, you know, after World War II, there was this real sense you've got to secure oil supply because it's such a strategic resource.

And the Middle East now suddenly becomes much more important as a source than anybody had thought about it.

Really, the only place producing oil in the Middle East before then was Persia, Iran.

Oil was discovered in 1938 in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and then got bottled up until after World War II.

I had a...

an economist named Ray Vernon, who came up with this term, the obsolescing bargain, which is Dorcas oil invest in such and such a country.

And you put $2 billion in there and it's great.