| From 1941 to 1943 Max Weston Thornburg, a corporate executive from Standard Oil Company of California, served the State Department as its first petroleum adviser. During these two years, Thornburg sought to articulate a corporate foreign oil policy based on a government-industry partnership. He had come to Washington as a spokesman for a group of liberal corporate oil executives concerned over the future marketability of Saudi Arabian oil and the trend toward nationalization of oil by producing nations. He believed that any oil policy had to be compatible not only with the American heritage of self-determination and anti-imperialism, but with corporate needs for government protection of its commercial interests abroad. Thornburg's philosophy rested firmly on the ideas articulated in the "American Century" by Henry Luce, editor of Time Magazine. Luce called for the United States government to promote a postwar global environment of American values which would make possible American commercial expansion abroad on an unprecendented scale.;The significance of Thornburg's story lies in his elucidation of a corporate approach to solve business problems through a partnership of collaboration with the government, and in his vision of a corporate America in the "American Century." Thornburg's blend of commercial aspiration, strategic national needs and American social responsibilities abroad are evidence of a nation and a corporate community developing the guiding principles to justify American commercial expansion on a global scale, in competition with the British Empire.;Harold L. Ickes, secretary of the Interior Department and head of the Petroleum Administration for War, opposed Thornburg's corporatist blend of public and private sector cooperation. He believed that foreign oil policy lay within his jurisdiction and that the government had to dominate any government-industry partnership. The resulting political feud over which agency of the government controlled foreign oil, and how a corporate partnership would be formed, was bitter and prolonged. Differences over how to rehabilitate the Mexican oil industry spread into differences over oil policy in Spain, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. Eventually, these personal, bureaucratic and policy differences led to Thornburg's resignation from government service. |
