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Oil Politics in Venezuela during the López Contreras Administration (1936–1941)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Kelvin Singh
Kelvin Singh
Affiliation:
Kelvin Singh is Senior Lecturer in Latin American History in theUniversity of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad.
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Extract

When the Venezuelan dictator, Juan Vincente Gómez, died on 17 December 1935, after ruling Venezuela with an iron fist for 27 years, an outburst of popular unrest and nationalistic fervour was unleashed against the foreign oil companies operating on Venezuelan soil. The dominant oil interests in Venezuela at the time were Royal Dutch Shell, the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey and the Gulf Oil Company. There were several smaller companies such as British Controlled Oilfields, a British state-owned company with a network of Venezuelan affiliates, and the Socony Vacuum Company, a New York-based company which was a significant latecomer. It was the first three aforementioned companies, however, that constituted the Big Three.1 The oil companies were associated in the popular mind with the odious Gómez dictatorship and partly for this reason became the object of the people's wrath. Yet there were also practical economic and social reasons for the popular feeling against the companies. The latter paid low wages, provided miserable housing and social amenities for their workers and discriminated against Venezuelans in their employment practices.2 For more than a year after the dictator's death Venezuela was in the throes of popular unrest.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 21 , Issue 1-2 , June 1989 , pp. 89 - 104
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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References

1 Lieuwen, E., Petroleum in Venezuela: A History (New York, 1967) Chs 2–5Google Scholar inclusive. Also Betancourt, R., Venezuela: Oil and Politics, trans, by Bauman, E. (Boston, 1979), ch. 1.Google Scholar For Anglo-Dutch and United States diplomatic manoeuvring for Venezuelan oil, see Rabe, S. G., The Road to OPEC: United States Relations with Venezuela, 1919–1976. (Austin, 1982), ch. 2Google Scholarpassim.

2 Tenassee, P. N., Venezuela, Los Obreros Petroleros y la Lucba Por la Democracia (Caracas, 1979), pp. 105–10.Google Scholar Also Lucena, H., El Movimiento Obrero Petrolero; Proceso de Formación y Desarollo (Caracas, 1982), pp. 247–8.Google Scholar

3 Ellner, S., Los Partidos Políticos y su Disputa por El Control del Movimiento Sindical en Venezuela, 1936–1948 (Caracas, 1980), p. 29.Google Scholar

4 Magallanes, M. V., Los Partidos Políticos: en la Evolución Histórica Venezolana, (Caracas, 1983), pp. 241–2.Google Scholar

5 Ellner, , Los Partidos Políticos, pp. 30–1.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., p. 33.

7 Betancourt, , Venezuela: Oil and Politics, p. 58.Google Scholar

8 Ellner, S.Los Partidos Políticos, p. 37.Google Scholar

9 Since 1961 the standard work on the Good Neighbour Policy has been Wood, B., The Making of the Good Neighbour Policy (New York and London, 1961).Google Scholar Wood, however, skirts the impact on US foreign policy of the Great Depression and fears of German economic penetration in Latin America. This is excellently treated in Grow, M., The Good Neighbour Policy and Authoritarianism in Paraguay (Lawrence, 1981) esp. chs. 1–5Google Scholar inclusive.

10 D.S. 836.6. Nicholson to Secretary of State, desp. 309, 8 June 1936.

11 D.S. 836.6. Nicholson to Secretary of State, desp. 371, 21 July 1936.

12 Ibid.

13 D.S. 831.6363. Nicholson to Secretary of State, desp. 404, 7 August 1936.

14 Nicholson would be replaced in May 1938 by a more pro-company minister, Antonio Gonzalez. On this see 831.6363/1075: Charlton Ogburn (Attorney and Counsellor at Law, N.Y.) to Secretary of State, 4 October 1938.

15 In this respect, my point of view differs from that of Rabe, , The Road to OPEC, pp. 60–1Google Scholar; Wood, , The Making of the Good Neighbour Policy, pp. 263–4Google Scholar; and Lieuwen, , Petroleum in Venezuela., pp. 76–7.Google Scholar

16 D.S. 831.6363/878. Nicholson to Secretary of State, desp. 218, 21 March, 1936.

17 D.S. 831.6363/894. Nicholson to Secretary of State, desp. 404, 7 August 1936.

18 D.S. 850.4. R. M. Brooks (American Consul, Curaçao) to Secretary of State, conf. desp. 153, 15 February 1937.

19 Lucena, , El Movimiento Obrero Petrolero, pp. 140–6.Google Scholar Also D.S. 836.6. Division of Current Information: Summary of Morning newspapers, 30 March 1937.

20 D.S. 831.6363/908. Nicholson to Secretary of State, desp. 433, 26 August 1936.

21 The anti-communist campaign started in June 1936 with the Venezuelan Government's publication of the infamous Libro Rojo (Red Book) of alleged communists, excerpts of which were carried in the conservative newspaper, La Esfera (e.g. its 15 June 1936 edition) Nicholson would later reveal the part played by the oil companies in this campaign.

22 For a profile of the different opposition groups, see Ellner, Los Partidos Políticos, ch. 2 and Magallanes, Los Partidos Políticos en la Evolución Histórica, ch. 7.

23 Vallenilla, L., Oil: The Making of a New Economic Order (New York, 1975), p. 44.Google Scholar Also the Venezuelan newspaper El Universal, 21 January 1937.

24 Pérez, Guzman, J. E. López Contreras: El Ultimo General (Division of Information). Federal Government (Caracas 1983), p. 28.Google Scholar For the oil companies' role in the anticommunist campaign, see D.S. 863.6. Nicholson to Secretary of State, desp. 660, 16 March 1937.

25 Lucena, , El Movimiento Obrero Petrolero, pp. 248–9.Google Scholar

26 Ibid., p. 278.

27 D.S. 836.6. Nicholson to Secretary of State desp. 695, 19 April 1937. Later the Supreme Court declared para. 1 of Art 27 unconstitutional. See D.S. 831.504.79. Nicholson to Secretary of State, desp. 929, 10 February 1938.

28 Lieuwen, , Petroleum in Venezuela, pp. 74–5.Google Scholar

29 D.S. 863.6. Villard (Chargé d'Affaires) to Secretary of State, desp. 619, 5 February 1937.

30 D.S. 863.6. Nicholson to Secretary of State, desp. 949, 4 March 1938.

31 D.S. 831.6363/1011. Department of State Memorandum of Conversation, 24 January 1938.

32 D. S. 831.6363/976. Nicholson to Secretary of State, desp. 740, 11 June 1937.

33 D.S. 863.6. Department of State Memorandum dated 2 June 1937.

34 Ibid.

35 D.S. 863.6. Department of State Memorandum dated 4 October 1938.

36 Betancourt, , Venezuela: Oil and Politics, pp. 32–3.Google Scholar

37 D.S. 831.6363.1028. Nicholson to Secretary of State, desp. 980, 11 April 1938.

38 D.S. 831.6363/1032. Memorandum from Welles, Department of State, 7 April 1938. Also D.S. 863.6. Department of State Memorandum of Conversation with W. T. S. Doyle, 1 September 1938.

39 D.S. 831.6363/1028. Nicholson to Secretary of State, desp. 980, 11 April 1938.

40 D.S. 863.6. Gonzalez to Secretary of State, desp. 22, 10 June 1938. Note, though, that in early 1941 the State would revive this claim.

41 D.S. 831.6363/1042. Braddock (Chargé d'Affaires) to Secretary of State, desp. 1002, 11 May 1938.

42 D.S. 831.63631/1032. Department of State Memorandum (Welles), 7 April 1938. Also D.S. 831.6363/1040. Note from military attaché (Panama), 18 April 1938; D.S. 831.6363/1044. González to Secretary of State, desp. 16, 2 June 1938; D.S. 831.6363/1462. Department of State Memorandum, 22 November 1938; and D.S. 731.32/1. Gonzalez to Secretary of State, desp. 204, 1 September 1938.

43 D.S. 831.6363/1059. Gonzalez to Secretary of State, desp. 106, 1 September 1938.

44 D.S. 831.6363/1044. Gonzalez to Secretary of State, desp. 106, 1 September 1938.

45 D.S. 831.63631/1059. Gonzalez to Secretary of State, desp. 106, 1 September 1938.

46 D.S. 831.6363/1125. Scott (Chargé d'Affaires) to Secretary of State, desp. 339, 15 June 1939.

47 Ibid.

48 Grow, The Good Neighbour Policy, ch. 3 passim. Also D.S. 831.63631/1132. W. G. Burdett (Counsellor, Amerïcan embassy, Rio de Janeiro) to Secretary of State, desp. 1425, 7 July 1939.

49 Lieuwen, , Petroleum in Venezuela., p. 87.Google Scholar

50 D.S. 831.6363/1139. Scott to Secretary of State, desp. 389, 2 August 1939. Also D.S. 831.6363/1139. Scott to Secretary of State, desp. 397, 8 August 1939.

51 D.S. 831.6363/146. Corrigan to Secretary of State. Telegram, 1 September 1939. Indeed, following the Venezuelan Supreme Court judgements, the US Department of State felt that there was no longer any urgency for its Venezuelan ambassador to hold talks with the Venezuelan President about the oil situation in the latter's country. See D.S. 831.6363/1139. A. A. Berle Jr to F. P. Corrigan, US ambassador to Caracas, 26 August 1939.

52 D.S. 863.6. Corrigan to Secretary of State, desp. 669, 9 January 1941. Also D.S. 863.6 Corrigan to Secretary of State, desp. 821, 2 April 1941.

53 D.S. 863.6. Personal letter from Pacanins to James M. Greer (Gulf Oil representative, New York), 7 April, 1941.

54 D.S. 863.6. Corrigan to Secretary of State, conf. desp. 795, 18 March 1941.

55 D.S. 863.6. State Department Memorandum of telephone conversation between Col. Drake and Mr Bonsai, 19 April 1941.

56 D.S. 863.6. From Caracas, confidential, 17 June 1941. The initials are almost certainly those of T. J. Maleady, a counsellor at the US embassy at Caracas.

57 Ibid. An emotive comment by T. J. M. about ‘that dirty dog, Maxoulien’ suggests that T. J.M. really believed Santa Ana's story.

58 For example, the Caracas bank accounts of Eustoquio Gómez and his mistress, Celia Villamizar, which were embargoed by the Venezuelan government following Juan V. Gómez's death, together amounted to over Bs8 million. The ex-dictator himself had both local and foreign accounts, estimated at some US $100 million. D.S. 831.00/1574. Nicholson to Secretary of State, desp. 155, 4 February 1936.