Oil and Indo-China

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32542, 27 February 1971, Page 16

Oil and Indo-China

Sir,—Those who have been at a loss to explain America’s massive expenditure on the Indo-China war may find an explanation by David Deitch in the “Boston Globe,” February 15. Deitch points out that in recent years some of the biggest low-sulphur oil deposits in the world have been discovered in the Gulf of Siam. The Thieu-Ky regime, he notes, “is expected to award some 17 oil-drilling leases to American, Canadian, and Japanese companies.” He quotes Jacques Decomoy’s comments in “Le Monde,” that six months after the Lon Nol .coup in Cambodia, Thailand and Cambodia began to negotiate on a common oilprospecting programme; the implementation of this programme would, of course, depend on foreign companies who possess the technology and the capital. Decomoy asks whether the oil groups “received solid assurances from Washington concerning the desire of the United States to ‘hold* Indo-China, in particular, South Vietnam,” noting that "the oil company began to invest at the very moment that President Nixon launched the slogan of ‘Vietnamisation.’ ” —Yours, etc., KEITH BUCHANAN. Wellington, Feb. 25, 1971.