1973 Arab Oil Embargo: Sadat's Backgammon, Nickel Grass and Empty Pumps

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By the late 1960s a barrel of oil hovered around $1.80, coal's share of American industry had fallen from 51 percent in 1951 to 19 percent by 1973, and U.S. oil production peaked in 1970. Nixon's 1971 price ceiling encouraged consumption, and ending the dollar's convertibility to gold cut the real value of OPEC revenue. Egypt's Anwar Sadat, Nasser's successor, allied with King Faisal of Saudi Arabia and in 1972 expelled 16,000 Soviet military personnel, an overture Henry Kissinger ignored. In April 1973 Saudi oil minister Yamani warned Kissinger, and told the Washington Post, that an embargo was possible. In October 1973 Egypt and Syria attacked Israel on Yom Kippur, the U.S. launched the Operation Nickel Grass airlift, and after Nixon sought $2.2 billion in aid for Israel, OAPEC embargoed the U.S., the UK, Canada, Japan and the Netherlands.

Prices jumped from $3 to nearly $12 a barrel. The new Federal Energy Office allocated fuel by each state's 1972 consumption, ignoring population shifts, and by late February 1974 20 percent of U.S. gas stations had no fuel; odd-even rationing, a 55 mile per hour limit and trucker blockades followed, while Japan and several European allies distanced themselves from U.S. policy. Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy secured Israeli withdrawals from parts of the Sinai and Golan Heights, and the embargo lifted in March 1974. The wealth unsettled producers too: Faisal fell into deep depression over the materialism it brought, and in November 1979 militants led by Juhayman al-Otaibi seized Mecca's Grand Mosque, citing royal corruption.

• Contractors in Jeddah hired helicopters to airlift cement off ships stuck in a gridlocked port.
• Sadat compared his diplomacy of surprise to his favorite game, backgammon.
• Nixon and Kissinger later admitted Israel had turned the battle before the airlift made an impact.
• Nigeria's leader told citizens their only problem would be managing abundance.
• Iran's Shah, secretly facing terminal cancer, rushed his Great Civilization modernization drive.