David W. Moore - Small Town, Big Oil: The Untold Story of the Women Who Took on the Richest Man in the World—And Won

To Zelda
and
To Phyllis Bennett, Dudley Dudley, and Nancy Sandberg

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DAVID W. MOORE is an award-winning author, and currently a Senior Fellow at the Carsey Center for Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. He is also the polling director and frequent columnist for iMediaEthics.org, for which he won the 2015 and 2016 EPPY Awards for his news/political commentary. For twenty-one years (1972-1993), he taught political science at the University of New Hampshire, and for the next thirteen years he worked at the Gallup Organization as a senior editor of the Gallup Poll. He became affiliated with UNH again in 2008. He is the author of three non-fiction trade books, and the co-author of one cross-over trade/academic book: The First Primary: New Hampshires Outsize Role in Presidential Nominations, with Andrew E. Smith (University Press of New England, 2015); The Opinion Makers: An Insider Exposes the Truth Behind the Polls (Beacon Press, hardback, 2008; revised edition in paperback 2009); How To Steal An Election: The Inside Story of How George Bushs Brother and Fox Network Miscalled the 2000 Election and Changed the Course of History (Nation Books, 2006); and The Super Pollsters: How They Measure and Manipulate Public Opinion in America (Four Walls Eight Windows, 1992; trade paperback 1995). He has published essays and articles in The New York Times, The Nation, The Boston Globe, Public Opinion Quarterly, New York Newsday, Public Perspectives, and numerous other books and journals.

www.davidmoore.us

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First Diversion Books edition March 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63576-187-0

While much information about the Onassis Oil Refinery controversy was provided in Publick Occurrences and other newspapers, this account would not have been possible without the personal interviews I conducted with Phyllis Bennett, Dudley Dudley, and Nancy Sandberg. Other people who also provided helpful information and encouragement include Sharon Meeker, Ray Belles, David Meeker, Bob Nilson, Clif Horrigan, Art Mathieson, Dale Valena, Patrick Bennett, and Meredith Bennett. I am greatly indebted to them and grateful for their support.

I am also grateful to my agent, Rita Rosenkranz, for her wise counsel and diligent efforts on my behalf.

Special thanks to my writing groupNoreen Kilbride, Shannon Huffman, and Brad Boltonfor their constructive critiques and unfailing encouragement.

Thanks also to the many people who allowed their photos to be included in this book (please see Photo Credits for a complete list).

Much appreciation to Lia Ottaviano of Diversion Books for her insightful edits and suggestions and her enthusiastic support.

As always, my greatest debt is to Zelda

Quoted and elaborated from The Battle for Durham Point, YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuruQX0VsvE. The elaboration is the sentence I added about the underappreciated leadership role of women.

Richard Nixon, Radio Message About the State of the Union Message on Natural Resources and the Environment (February 14, 1973), American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=4101.

Unless otherwise noted, information about Onassiss life comes from Peter Evans, Ari: The Life and Times of Aristotle Onassis (New York: Charter Books, 1988).

Premise of the 1988 movie, The Richest Man in the World (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095780/), based on the writing of Peter Evans, Jacqueline Feather, and David Seidler.

Nicholas Fraser, Philip Jacobson, Mark Ottaway, and Lewis Chester, Aristotle Onassis (New York and Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1977), 338-39.

Ibid., 263-278, 297; and Peter Evans, Nemesis: Aristotle Onassis, Jackie O, and the Love Triangle That Brought Down the Kennedys (New York: ReganBooks, 2005), 150-170.

Fraser et al, Aristotle Onassis, 340.

Evans, Ari, 288.

Fraser et al, Aristotle Onassis, 340.

Ibid., 340-341.

Ibid., 341.

Leon W. Anderson, To This Day: the 300 years of the New Hampshire legislature (Canaan, NH: Phoenix Publishing, 1981), 25.

Anderson,To This Day, 75.

See the website of the State of New Hampshire (http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/house/abouthouse/housefacts.htm).

Evans, Nemesis, 233.

Ibid., 268.

Ron Lewis, Real Estate Blitz on Durham Point, Publick Occurrences (Newmarket, NH), Oct. 5, 1973.

This account was later published in How Durham Point was taken, Publick Occurrences (Newmarket, NH), Dec. 14, 1973.

Publick Occurrences (Newmarket, NH), Oct. 5, 1973.

Tom Dudley, My Life on Boats, Vol. I, (self-pub, 2014), 24.

D. Allan Kerr, 1969 incarceration of black Marines drew Seacoast protests, Seacoastonline.com, Feb. 8, 2015, http://www.seacoastonline.com/article/20150208/NEWS/150209335.

Tom Dudley, My Life on Boats, 58-59.

A Bit of Naval Shipyard history, Fosters Daily Democrat (Dover, NH), Dec. 17, 2014, http://www.fosters.com/article/20141217/GJOPINION_0102/141219515. See also, D. Allan Kerr, 1969 incarceration of black Marines drew Seacoast protests, Seacoastonline.com, Feb. 8, 2015, http://www.seacoastonline.com/article/20150208/NEWS/150209335. Photo comes from Tom Dudley, My Life on Boats, 58.

Tom Dudley, My Life on Boats, 59.

The Circumstances of Public Affairs, Publick Occurrences (Newmarket, NH), Nov. 30, 1973.

Publick Occurrences (Newmarket, NH), Nov. 23, 1973.

I couldnt think of a worse place to put it, Publick Occurrences (Newmarket, NH), Nov. 30, 1973.

Publick Occurrences (Newmarket, NH), Nov. 30, 1973.

Ibid.

Unless otherwise indicated, all of the information in this chapter comes from Kevin Cash, Who the Hell is William Loeb?.

William Loeb, 75, Controversial Newspaper Publisher, Dies, Washington Post (Washington, DC), Sept. 14, 1981.

Cash, Who the Hell is William Loeb?, 52.

Ibid., 110.

Ibid., 307-308.

Information about Meldrim Thomson comes from the following: Cash, Who the Hell is William Loeb?, 264; obituaries in the New York Times and the Washington Post, April 20, 2001; Meldrim Thomson, Jr., Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meldrim_Thomson_Jr. and Gale Thomson, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gale_Thomson.

All information about the elections comes from Cash, Who the Hell is William Loeb?.

Ibid.,