Oil, the Marines, and Prof. Tucker

The lead article in the January Commentary, prominent on the cover, was “Oil: The Issue of American Intervention,” by Robert W. Tucker.* It argues a case for the armed seizure by the U.S. of the Arabian coastline bordering the Persian Gulf that produces 40 percent of the total petroleum produced by the OPEC countries and contains-an equal proportion of the entire world’s proven reserves.

Few recent articles have aroused such attention. One reason was the publication later that month of an interview with Henry Kissinger in which, referring to the oil crisis, Kissinger denied that “there’s no circumstance where we would not use force” and suggested that “some actual strangulation of the indu...