FOREIGN TRADE: Oil Cutback

Defense Mobilizer Arthur S. Flemming last week handed U.S. oil companies a knotty problem. Foreign oil, said he, is coming into the country too fast. If U.S. companies want to avoid their first taste of Government import curbs, they must cut crude-oil imports voluntarily by 7% during the last quarter of 1955 and the first of 1956. A House Judiciary subcommittee promptly let out a shout of warning. Asked the subcommittee: How could the oil companies comply without acting in concert and thus violating antitrust laws? Flemming pointed out that he had merely made a suggestion.

Nevertheless, Flemming made it...

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