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Enough warnings had thus been sounded, and if that were not enough,
the Libyan leader, Colonel Qaddafi, declared on July 10 on French tv
that in future the Arabs would be able to use their oil as a political
weapon against the usa and Western Europe. On September 4, too, at a
meeting in Kuwait of the Foreign Ministers of the opec countries, the
question of using the oil weapon was openly discussed. The claim made
by Yergin, in his book The Prize, that the embargo came almost as a total
surprise cannot therefore be taken seriously. 19 The use of the oil weapon
most certainly did not come out of the blue. 20
Turf War in The Hague
During the years leading up to 1973, the possibility of restrictions on the
oil supply had also preoccupied The Hague. The Dutch Ministries of Economic
Affairs and Foreign Affairs in particular had been at work on this
question: indeed, there had been a certain vying for recognition between
these departments as to whose area of competence it was. Economic Affairs
was responsible for foreign economic relations, which was taken to
include the question of oil supplies. Yet to the extent that this question of
oil supply was being raised increasingly often in such international organizations
as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(oecd), and the more the political nature of the whole oil question
was foregrounded, the more the Foreign Ministry became involved. During
the period of the Biesheuvel Cabinet (1971-1973), this led to friction
between the ministers concerned, H. Langman, Minister of Economic
Affairs, and W.K.N. Schmelzer, the Foreign Minister.
At the Dutch Foreign Ministry, the oil problem was especially the concern
of the Department for Economic Cooperation (des). The central
role of des stemmed from the increasing importance of the oecd and the
ec in matters of oil. In January 1971 it was decided to appoint the des as
co-ordinating organ within the Foreign Ministry where matters of oil
supply were concerned. Plans for emergency allocation had been debated
within oecd for some years. At the beginning of 1970, prompted by the
Americans, the oecd again began to pay more attention to the security
aspect of the oil supply. Washington’s basic position was that within a
few years the West European countries could no longer expect to be able
to call on American oil reserves. In addition, the demand for crude oil on
the world market was now in excess of supply. The us therefore wanted
the oecd to discuss measures for reducing dependence on Arab oil and, if
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