Fair Game

...A few businesses have already been crippled by the exhortations to conserve energy-It was a disastrous season for makers of Christmas tree ornaments...

...many more will be affected adversely by the continuing rises in fuel prices...

...With a little luck, the lords of Araby will soon relent, permit us to buy their oil at remarkable prices and save the Administration from the nuisances of rationing...

...Can feudal Arabia survive Faisal's accomplishment...

...securities...

...and subsidize them in sinking wells wherever they have a mind to sink them...

...Numbers of corporations can be counted on to make out nicely...

...We are not in so fragile a condition that a shortage of fuel can destroy us, and we are not in so sound a condition that it can bring us together...

...This technique of declaring one's campaign a success as a way of ending it owes something to Senator George Aiken's program (alas, adopted too late) of pronouncing ourselves the victors in Vietnam and making a fast exit...

...Another bright spot may turn out to be the airlines industry, which has lately had trouble flying very high economically...

...A difficult winter is shaping up for laid-off auto workers...

...An excellent program for scenario-devisers trapped in their own scenarios...

...Can it be that the Shah of Iran has a couple of billion socked away in U.S...

...Fair Game BY WALTER GOODMAN Over the Oil Barrel Whether our Great Oil Shortage this winter will be in the range of 1.7, 2.5 or 3.2 million barrels a day, I, along with energy czarevitch William E. Simon, don't have the foggiest notion...

...Nostalgia for the Depression is epidemic...

...Civil War buffs are a dime a dozen...

...We must all agree, however, that we are in a crisis...

...a politician's main function is to vote money for more interstate roads and accept contributions...

...that's a law of free enterprise...

...Ecologists, who are watching the results of years of struggle coming undone overnight as coal producers and auto makers regain the right to pollute our lives in the national interest, may take comfort in the reduction of jet flights and automobile sales, just as the National Safety Council can enjoy the lower figures on highway deaths during long weekends...

...The Arabs and Us Our own oil-producing states, inspired by the actions of their competitors around the Persian Gulf, will doubtless figure out ways to capitalize on the nation's needs...

...Travelers, though unable to get exactly where they want when they want to get there, may yet be lucky enough to find themselves on a plane with the President and entourage bound for one of his tax-deductible spas...

...We like our crises...

...Still, the fears that a drop in our oil supplies will result in catastrophe, like the hopes that it will result in resurrection, may be written off as crisis-mongering...

...That will end our crisis and leave merely our serious problems...

...Now, Lincoln was preceded by Buchanan, and Roosevelt was preceded by Hoover-not the worst of Presidents, but not crisis-conquerors by a long shot...

...Keep on truckin', baby...

...It is adding to both inflation and unemployment, thereby enhancing George Shultz's game plan...

...One must, to be sure, keep one's fingers crossed, but the present position has its engaging aspect...

...After all, we're not in a war for the life of civilization...

...They will repay the nation for their good luck (or was it good planning...

...A heartening thought, for it suggests that we are now only in the crisis-building period...

...by continuing to run public-spirited advertisements advising us to wear sweaters, walk to the corner grocery...

...Quite the contrary...

...No sooner does the President issue a call to the nation to turn down the thermostats and go easy on the gas pedals than people begin filling up five-gallon containers and industries begin hollering for their fair or unfair shares of the available supply...

...The hearings will surely be illuminating, but they will have no effect on profits...

...industry may find itself at a competitive advantage vis-a-vis Japan, West Germany and our other friends...

...The higher the price goes for Persian Gulf Oil, the brighter the prospects for America's foreign trade, balance of payments, and the standing of the dollar...

...We take pride in them...

...The latter calls for a kind of morale we have not enjoyed in recent years, and for more than a shadow of leadership to cultivate it...

...We are pleased to think that we are only seen at our best when the going gets rough...

...To get back home, as of this hour the nation is not blaming the Israelis or domestic Jews for our oil problems...

...Some of the Middle East regimes must surely be wondering now whether by drawing the world's nervous attention to their power and wealth, they are in fact doing much for their long-term stability...

...They were just warm-ups for the main bout...

...If you have been wondering what, besides the wish that the Arabs would stop kidding around, is in the heads of Washington's feckless, faceless cadre of energy czarevitches, remember that they are pretty much the same people who gave us Phase II and Phase III...

...We have a habit of proclaiming our knack for producing great leaders in such critical times-washington, Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, you know the list...

...Thanks, Faisal...

...Nelson Rockefeller...

...Do the anachronistic sheiks' hearts leap with joy at the thought of more billions seeping into the hands of assorted revolutionaries, nationalists, militarists and lunatics whose hatred and ambitions are by no means directed exclusively at Israel...

...Yet if our domestic producers' price for oil remains substantially lower than foreign producers', U.S...

...Will it prove much good for most Arabs...

...A crisis is not a shortage of oil...

...Periodic obeisance by these proud nations to the superior justice of the Arab cause may get them a reprieve, but it won't get them a discount...

...Until then, official policy seems to be to make incoherent statements, produce befuddling statistics, and let the poor walk to the bakery if they must have cake...

...Grooving on Crisis While some suffer, others prosper...

...The real thing is not yet upon us...

...Truckers, of course, are convinced that the whole Middle Eastern commotion is an effort to screw them, a mental set probably induced by spending so much time on the highways...

...it is a state of mind that is indispensable in our present condition...

...Nelson Rockefeller...

...Oil, we are most belatedly beginning to understand, is a powerful and many-sided weapon...

...They declared in their December communique from Kuwait: "The conferees have noted with satisfaction the gradual change in the trends of the American public opinion which has begun to show a tangible understanding of the Arab problem and the expansionist policy of Israel...

...If Nixon continues to use commercial jets in order to "score points" with the public, the airlines may have to set aside a section of every plane for those passengers, smokers and non-smokers alike, who prefer not to be photographed shaking his hand...

...To a people capable of such an innovation, coming up with substitute sources of energy ought to be a snap...

...In these tepid times, we model our behavior not on precepts delivered from the White House pulpit, but on the example of its occupant, and few occupants have given the nation so unremitting a show of self-interest as this Nixon...

...The Arabs have already indicated that they are preparing to grant us a portion of mercy, if not absolution...

...A super-rich Arab world may not be good for the Jews-but is it good for the Persians...

...Most likely, things will work themselves out...

...America's truckers are not accustomed to having politicians tell them how fast they may drive...

...Optimists, who are surfacing with welcome frequency, can conjure up a renewal of our cities out of this difficulty, better mass transportation and cleaner fuels, a less wasteful citizenry, healthier indoor temperatures, and a general strengthening of home life as families gather for warmth in front of their TVs...

...Since the Arabs are full-fledged Semites, persisting discomforts owing to a want of oil may bring on a form of American anti-Semitism which is pro-Jewish...

...The historical function of the Nixon Administration is to churn matters up to a really terrific pitch, at which point the American phenomenon, the crisis-conqueror, will appear and save us...

...For the time being, then, the oil shortage promises to bring severe hardship to a relative few in this country, big profits to even fewer, and annoyances of one degree or another to most people...

...Well, that's their business and the CIA's business...

...We may look forward to a time, and it should not be long in coming, when one of those Senate Select Committees will hold public hearings into the recent behavior of the oil majors-their arrangements among themselves, with government officials, and with the oil-producing lands-that have helped bring us to this pass...

...We may confidently expect that the major oil companies, for example, will reap fortunes out of our present predicament, which they have reason to think of paternally...

...The airlines' haste to fire crews and cut back on flights suggests that their managers see at last an opportunity to balance the books...

...That's natural...

...Until then, we must make do with what we have, and we all know what that is...

...It will probably invite bribes, extortion, gouging, hoarding, finaglings, tantrums, and other tributes to the Administration's lifestyle...

...It is conceivable that we shall get through this winter and other winters and summers to come without dire dislocations, but we cannot get through without a crisis...