Gordon Zuckerman - Crude Deception 2

Wearing bulky waders, Jacques Roth felt exposed and defenseless standing in the knee-deep riffles of Wyomings North Platte River. It wasnt fishing that had brought Jacques to the Platte. His assignment was to record the make, model, and N number of each of the chartered planes that would be landing at the remote airstrip next to Wyomings Rocky Mountain Club, a private and very exclusive hunting and fishing club. He needed to prove that the chief executive from each of the United States seven largest oil companies had met here, all at the same time.

Jacquess presence in Wyoming was the result of an offhand comment made by a senior oil executive at a bankers meeting attended by Morgan Stone, chairman of New York Citys prestigious Stone City Bank. Based on the comment, Morgan had become concerned that this oil executiveand the executives of the other major oil companieswere arranging a private meeting, probably out of interest in extending their control over the nations oil supply, which was needed to meet increasing postwar demand. He immediately alerted his son, Mike Stone, who was a longtime friend and associate of Jacques.

It was 1946; both Mike and Jacques had worked for Stone City Bank for more than seven years following their graduation from the University of California at Berkeleys doctoral program. They were also two of the six Sentinels, a group that had been instrumental in preventing the German industrialists from using their war fortunes to fund another Reich. Though that mission was over, the core members of the Sentinels were still very much concerned with the corruption that results from too much power becoming concentrated in too few hands. And thats exactly what Morgan Stone suspected was about to happen in the oil industry.

Morgan had called Mike and Jacques together to discuss his growing worry over the situation. As a result of Japans defeat in the East and Germanys defeat in the West, he said to them, seven American and British oil companies have found themselves in control of a large portion of the worlds oil production. If these seven members of a self-styled Oil Club are planning to extend their control of the worlds future oil production, the concentration of so much power and wealth could eventually lead to their control of the worlds economic and political future.

Mike and Jacques sat silently in the boardroom of Stone City Bank, eager to find out what they could do to help.