President Richard
M. Nixon's request to Congress for $2.2 billion in arms for Israel, the seven-member Organization of Arab Petroleum Producing Countries brandished the "oil weapon" and ordered an oil em- bargo against the United States.
In early November, the Arab oil ministers, whose govern- ments together controlled 60 percent of the noncommunist world's proven reserves of petroleum, agreed to cut production to 75 percent of the September 1973 level.
On Christmas Eve 1973, OPEC raised...