Preface to all four parts: with all the focus on precious metals lately, I wanted to share a chapter from my Panic Prosperity and Progress book about a germane period in financial history related to the Hunts and their attempt to corner the silver market. You can read part one here.

Around this time, a radical military man named Colonel Gaddafi seized power in Libya and nationalized the country’s oil wells. Of course, Bunker’s successful operation was one of these, and the arch-conservative Bunker expected the United States to take ferocious action against this thief. The U.S. did nothing of the sort, and Armand Hammer (the interestingly-named CEO of Occidental Petroleum) agreed to give Gaddafi a 51% “royalty” in exchange for continuing operations in Libya.

Bunker was incensed at this thinly-veiled extortion payment. The Hunts had a grave distrust of many parties, including East Coast oil companies (led, they believed, by the Rockefeller clan), and Occidental’s capitulation to this lunatic Colonel was just more proof that their worldview was correct.