Word: week
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Even as President Carter struggled to resolve the Iranian crisis, his defenders and critics last week began what almost surely will become a protracted controversy over the events that led to the takeover of the embassy in Tehran-and what the U.S. might have done, if anything, to prevent it. Some experts on Iran in the academic world believe the first mistake of the Carter Administration was failing to understand the basic nature of the movement that swept the Ayatullah Khomeini into power. Following the policies of preceding administrations, Carter originally supported the Shah, seeing him as a stabilizing ally...
Once the Administration decided to stay in Iran, it made little sense to try moving the embassy to more defensible quarters. As Carter said last week: "An embassy is not a fortress. There are no embassies anywhere in the world that can long withstand the attack of a mob, if the mob has the support of the host government itself." The U.S. had already greatly reduced the number of personnel affiliated with the embassy, from about 1,500 during the Shah's reign to 73. Fewer staffers would not have been able to maintain normal relations in a country...
Beyond the fate of the hostages in Tehran, a new worry loomed last week: Was the energy-squeezed and inflation-dazed world economy about to fall victim to the crisis between the U.S. and Iran? Though the U.S.'s cutoff of imports from Iran and its seizure of that nation's assets in U.S. banks was a necessary response to irrational provocations, the actions also transformed petrodollars and petroleum itself into even more dangerous weapons in economic brinksmanship. That, in turn, added a new and alarming element to the crisis...
...assets before they could be withdrawn. When rumors circulated in Europe and New York that Iran would counteract the move by refusing to accept dollars as payment for its oil delivered to any nation, the U.S. currency began to gyrate all over again. Brokers and traders passed the week wearing looks of astonishment at what might come next...
...every refinery can process all grades of crude, oilmen face logistical headaches in trying to switch about their Iranian and non-Iranian supplies. That is especially true for the four American companies providing nearly all of the 700,000 or so barrels of Iranian oil that until last week had entered the U.S. each day. Amerada Hess, the largest single supplier, delivered about 200,000 bbl. of the total. Much of it was processed at the company's refinery at St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, then transshipped to mainland U.S. ports. Among the other big suppliers, Gulf...