TIME has published dozens of stories on the energy crisis since August 1970, when the Business section described the already visible effects of the energy pinch on American industry. This week's cover story is our fourth major report on the situation. In the June 12, 1972 issue, we warned that the demand for energy in the U.S. and round the world was continuing to grow at an alarming rate. In April 1973 TIME, FORTUNE and SPORTS ILLUSTRATED sponsored a three-day conference at which political, business and environmental leaders were brought together to explore solutions to the problem. The special supplement that appeared in the May 7, 1973 issue of TIME emphasized the crucial and complex role of oil.

"The situation gets more complicated every day," says Contributing Editor James Grant, who wrote this week's cover story, "but I don't think Americans will believe it until they get a look at their bills." Grant has been a journalist for 19 years. He spent part of that time in Europe covering military and political affairs as a civilian correspondent for Stars & Stripes, Army Times and other military publications. He has covered stories in most of Europe's capitals, including Moscow, and reported on the activities of the American and British fleets during the 1956 Arab-Israeli war, when he accompanied the U.S. forces from Naples to aid in the evacuation of Americans from Alexandria. He joined the TIME Business section in 1969, after three years as a writer and assistant managing editor with Sales Management magazine. For the past six months he has been concentrating on oil and energy stories.

"This crisis hits me over the head every time I go to the gas pump," says Grant, "but the implications of this story go far beyond immediate personal considerations." Grant's experience abroad has helped him put into perspective both the economic and diplomatic aspects of this week's story, which was reported by TIME correspondents in more than ten countries. In Saudi Arabia, Beirut Bureau Chief Karsten Prager spoke with Oil Minister Yamani and other high government officials, and observed the Saudi Arabian land and lifestyle. "From 30,000 feet above," Prager says, "it seems somehow as if God must have been looking away when the land was created. But somewhere along the line He made up for the rocks and sand and blazing heat. Saudi Arabia has riches that few nations enjoy."

Other members of the Business section pitched in to produce the complex story of the oil siege. Contributing Editor Donald Morrison wrote a box on the inscrutable King Feisal, with the help of Reporter-Researcher Jay Rosenstein. Reporter-Researchers Bonita Siverd and Sally Button also contributed to the story, which was edited by Senior Editor Marshall Loeb. "People like to say that the Arabs are unpredictable," Loeb points out, "but they have been warning us all along of what they would do. The U.S. Government just failed to take them seriously. We have been terribly wasteful with our resources, and now we are just going to have to learn to live with less."

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