THE WORLD

Black October: Old Enemies at War Again

The sirens began to wail while all Israel was observing Yom Kippur, the holiest and also the quietest day of the Jewish year. By tradition, tens of thousands of servicemen were home on leave; Israeli Broadcasting had shut down for the day. As crowds of worshipers emerged from synagogues at the end of the five-hour-long morning services of atonement, they found the streets filled with speeding trucks, buses and Jeeps. By late afternoon, virtually every Israeli--and much of the rest of the world as well--knew that what Defense Minister Moshe Dayan defiantly called "all-out war" had begun again.

The fighting erupted when Egyptian troops surged across the Suez Canal and Syrian soldiers struck in the north on the Golan Heights. Both forces swept through Israel's front lines and punched their way into Israeli-held territory under the glare of an afternoon sun.

The Political Weapon

After long muttering vaguely about using their abundant oil as a "political weapon," the newly unified Arab leaders finally unsheathed it last week. They vowed to cut the oil production on which the fuel-short West depends and to raise prices sharply. That oil squeeze could easily lead to cold homes, hospitals and schools, shuttered factories, slower travel, brownouts, consumer rationing, aggravated inflation and even worsened air pollution in the U.S., Europe and Japan.

The Arabs took three steps:

1) Ten Arab countries meeting in Kuwait decided that each month from now on they will reduce oil output at least 5% below the preceding month. The cutbacks will continue, they said, "until an Israeli withdrawal is completed, and until the restoration of the legal rights of the Palestinian people."

2) King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, the biggest Mideast producer, at first decreed a 10% cut in output. But by week's end, as the war seemed to be going against the Arabs, he announced a total ban on oil shipments to the U.S. Presently, 3.4% of the crude oil consumed daily by the U.S. comes from Saudi Arabia. Libya, Algeria and Abu Dhabi also announced new embargos.

3) Six Persian Gulf oil countries lifted the posted price of crude oil (a theoretical figure on which royalties and taxes are based) by a stunning 70% to $5.11 per bbl. It will keep Arab oil revenues rising--helping to pay for the war against Israel--even as fewer barrels are shipped out.

Dimouts and Slowdowns

Rushing to work last week, John Doe, American, swung his car onto the freeway--only to discover that the posted speed limit had been reduced from 60 m.p.h. to 50 m.p.h. When he stopped at a gas station for a refill, he learned that overnight the price had gone up 2-c- per gal. At his office he felt unusually cool because the thermostats had been pushed down a couple of degrees to a brisk 68DEG.

As the voracious demand for oil increasingly outstripped new sources of supply in recent years, an energy crisis crept up on the world with fateful inevitability. Yet, despite spreading signs of scarcity, most government leaders in the U.S., Europe and Japan paid little heed to calls from oilmen for urgent measures to expand energy resources and curb waste. Instead, they chose to believe that there was time to formulate some painless strategy to avert a genuine global emergency.

Now time has abruptly run out. The Arabs, who control nearly 60% of the world's proven deposits, are slowing down the flow. Through this strategy of squeeze, they hope to pressure the industrial nations into forcing Israel to make peace on terms favorable to the Arabs. Moreover, they are steadily intensifying their oil shakedown. Originally they planned to reduce production by at least 5% each month. Later they embargoed all oil shipments to the U.S. and The Netherlands, in punishment for their support of Israel. Last week, showing new unity and clout, ten Arab countries announced that production for November will be slashed a minimum of 25% below the September total of 20.5 million bbl. per day.

The implications of the oil warfare reach far beyond the Arab-Israeli dispute. Not since World War II has any event carried more potential for global change. Even if the Arabs were to reopen their taps tomorrow, the world would never again be the same. The sudden shortage of fuel has finally jolted governments into a realization that the era of cheap and ample energy is dead and that people will have to learn to live permanently with less heating, lighting and transport and pay more for each of them.

INDOCHINA

The Fighting Finally Stops

Its fighters and bombers grounded, its guns silenced, and its soldiers withdrawn from battlefields, America last week ceased waging war in Indochina for the first time in nearly a decade. At midnight on Tuesday (Washington, D.C., time) all U.S. combat activity ended. It was one of the great anticlimaxes in the nation's history. There were no speeches, no celebrations, not even among the professional pilots who had been finally the only ones left to carry on the war. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.