Jablonski Wanda (2 results)

No Binding. Condition: Very Good. Two b/w photos with text printed to the recto of one sheet of Agfa paper 21x26cm. Very good with notes to the back. This was issued to promote the documentary aired during 1992-3 based on Daniel Yergin's Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same name (1990). The book became a bestseller, appearing 4 months after Iraq invaded Kuwait, and a month before the Gulf War. The top photo, credited to Aramco, shows a Saudi Bedouin camel rider regarding a drilling rig, oil workers and their vehicle in the desert (undated, c1940s-50s). The lower photo, credited to the Estate of Wanda Jablonski, shows "the most influential oil journalist of her time, the matchmaker for an alliance that would develop into OPEC" with colleagues on the steps of a United Air Lines aircraft. The documentary was produced by In Vision Productions in association with Media International Co and WGBH Boston, and presented by Transpacific Films and Majestic Films International.

An offprint of this special report for Petroleum Week. Jablonski penned this short but incisive piece just months before the Suez Crisis, around the time Mohammed Salman was making plans for the First Congress with Saudi Arabia and Aramco. Wanda Jablonski (1920-1992) was a well-connected and influential journalist in the world oil industry. She made her reputation in 1948 when, as oil editor at the Journal of Commerce, she interviewed Venezuela's oil minister Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo in Caracas. This interview was unusual at the time, as it broadcast the views of a developing nation to a western audience. She moved to Petroleum Week in 1954. In 1960, Jablonski warned oil company executives about hostility toward the West and a growing outcry against "absentee landlordism" in the Middle East. They ignored her warnings and went ahead with the August 1960 price cut, which led to the formation of OPEC weeks later. She then founded Petroleum Intelligence Weekly (1961-88), which came to be known as "the bible of the oil industry". This special report calls the oil supply in the Middle East "key to free world survival" (p. 3) and warns against allowing the Soviet Union to build influence there. It also charts the effect oil was having on the economies of the region, praising Kuwait for "bridging millenniums in a decade" (p. 4). Jablonski argues that even if the US could theoretically survive without access to Middle Eastern oil the rest of the world could not, especially in the event of another war. "Any way you look at it, America's stake in the Middle East is tremendous" (p. 8). Quarto, pp. 8. Colour maps and diagrams throughout. Original wrappers, wire-stitched as issued, front wrapper with title in white against a green panel. Small pencil note to foot of rear wrapper. Strong vertical crease, wrappers foxed, top edge slightly nicked, contents bright: a very good copy of a fragile publication.