The Great lam

Dr. Wendell Phillips, paleontologist, is rather like a mirage on one of the Arabian deserts that he frequents. He looks too good to be true and he never quite comes into focus. By his own account, he has an apartment in Hawaii that is "the most beautiful in the world." He also says he has the world's largest library in South Arabia, owns part of a large apartment complex in Sacramento. He neither smokes nor drinks, but he is such a prodigious dancer that in his own words, "I have to take young 17-and 18-year-old girls in shifts." He adds, almost incidentally: "I am the largest private oil concessionaire in the world."

All this comes from a slight, softly spoken but highly persuasive man of 44. For the past 20 years, notables ranging from Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz to the Sultan of Muscat and Oman have been talked into doing nice things for Wendell Phillips--like backing his archaeological expeditions and giving him oil concessions.

Bursting Talents. Born in Oakland, Calif., Phillips graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1943, became a merchant seaman during World War II. After the war, his talents as a promoter burst upon the archaeological world. At 26, with backing from Nimitz, President Robert Sproul of the University of California, Prime Minister Jan Smuts of South Africa and others, he organized and led a mammoth archaeological expedition from Cairo to the Cape. He established his own grandly named American Foundation for the Study of Man and led further expeditions into Sinai, Aden and Yemen.

Some of his work was significant. For the Library of Congress he microfilmed the library at the monastery of St. Catherine's at Mount Sinai. His book,

Qataban and Sheba, was praised by scholars. But the U.S. State Department got annoyed when Phillips started dabbling in sensitive Mid-East politics. Scholars on his own expedition com plained that he was more interested in angles than in artifacts. And the Yemen trek ended abruptly when Phillips fled the country, fearing assassination by uncontrolled Yemeni soldiers.

By the Will. After the Yemen fiasco, Phillips took refuge in Oman in 1952 and became a good friend of Sultan Said bin Taimur. He went into the oil business one day when the Sultan, after complaining that he had not found oil like other Middle Eastern rulers, said to Phillips, "And by the will of God we shall have oil, for I am granting you the oil concession for Dhofar." Dhofar, an area the size of Ohio, has not yet produced any oil. But it made Phillips a millionaire, because he divided his 21% interest in the concession into 1,000 units, sold a quarter of them for about $1,500,000--and kept the rest, in case oil should be found. Later, the Sultan gave Phillips two offshore oil concessions, one of which he sold to a group headed by Wintershall A.G. of West Germany, keeping a 5% royalty. The West German firms are about to start seismic soundings. This year Phillips also acquired from the Sultan copper-mining and commercial fishing rights in Oman.

In 1955, Phillips turned to Libya after dropping the usual string of names and introductions, was soon in conference with King Idris working out an oil concession. Phillips' original 3% interest in the 9,000-sq,-mi. concession has been lost to sight in a series of transfers. The concession is now held by W. R. Grace & Co. and Sinclair Oil, and the field operator is Standard Oil of New Jersey. None of these companies deals directly with Phillips, but he is believed to be drawing from $100,000 to $200,000 annually from royalties on the Ra-guba well, which is producing 95,000 bbl. daily.

How Much? Phillips participates in further concessions in Venezuela giving him an interest in a total of 87,000 square miles of potential or working oil land. "How much money do I have?" asks Phillips. "Someone came up with a figure of $364 million. I don't know where he got it. I don't know what I am worth. Certainly, the Libyan holding is worth far more than that."

It may be--but probably is not. In any case, Phillips is still living as good a yarn as he tells. He has just sold, for about $1,000,000, a cattle ranch in Nevada and published a new book, Unknown Oman. Last week, after a brief cruise in the Greek Isles, he flew to New York on the spur of the moment, went to Texas to dine with Oilman John Mecom, continued on to San Francisco and Honolulu. Next, he contemplates going to Viet Nam, where he is an accredited war correspondent for Scripps-Howard.

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