The_Info_Web/70 - DISPATCHES/2026-10-14 Crossed This Bridge.md

title	date	status	summary	entities	tags
Crossed This Bridge	2026-10-14	published	The 1953 grand jury inquiry into the oil cartel ran with a committee that included the CIA; within two years the Iranian consortium had narrowed the case to marketing.	Standard Oil Department of Justice Central Intelligence Agency National Security Council Harry S. Truman Frank Church Iran	StandardOil OilCartel Iran Antitrust

Crossed This Bridge

The Justice Department's report to the National Security Council of January 1953 stated that "an indictment could have been returned on the basis of the Federal Trade Commission's staff report and a small number of documents in the possession of the Department of Justice." It said the grand jury's secrecy made it preferable to "a Congressional or inter-departmental committee," and that "the pending investigation is being conducted with the aid of a committee composed of representatives of State, CIA, Defense and Justice, specifically concerned with problems of sensitivity and the international repercussions of the inquiry."¹ It warned that a decision to end the investigation "would be regarded by the world as a confession that our abhorrence of monopoly and restrictive cartel activities does not extend to the world's most important single industry."²

On January 12, 1953, eight days before leaving office, President Harry S. Truman wrote to Attorney General James P. McGranery that "the interest of national security might be best served at this time" by resolving the questions "in the context of civil litigation rather than in the context of a criminal proceeding," and asked that "appropriate steps be taken to cause the termination of the pending grand jury proceedings."²

The Iranian consortium was assembled after the 1953 coup. On August 19, 1954 an Antitrust Division attorney wrote that the participants' plan "goes beyond the premises upon which the Attorney General's opinion delivered to the National Security Council was based," and the division saw in it "a continuation of the cartel pattern." The Attorney General "felt that he had already crossed this bridge on January 20" and approved the plan. On September 15, 1954 he "agreed that approval of the consortium was inconsistent with the cartel case as the complaint is drawn and that necessarily the case must proceed with emphasis on the marketing aspects and not on the production control aspects."³

---

1. U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, The International Petroleum Cartel, the Iranian Consortium, and U.S. National Security (committee print, February 21, 1974), p. 32. https://archive.org/details/TheInternationalPetroleumCartelTheIranianConsortiumAndU.S.NationalSecurity ↩︎

2. The International Petroleum Cartel, the Iranian Consortium, and U.S. National Security, p. 33. ↩︎

3. The International Petroleum Cartel, the Iranian Consortium, and U.S. National Security, preface by Sen. Frank Church, pp. VII-VIII (quoting the Antitrust Division memorandum of August 19, 1954 and the memorandum to Barnes of September 15, 1954). ↩︎