OIL MAGNATE'S CASE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19060, 3 July 1925, Page 9

OIL MAGNATE'S CASE.

SCANDALS IN AMERICA. PACIFIC WAR THREATENED. Renter. NEW YORK. July 1. The New York Times publishes a lengthy statement by Mr. C. Dolieny concerning his reindictment on a charge of alleged fraud in connection with the oil lease scandals. The trial is expected to ho opened in October. Mr. Doheny says thero never would have been an invalidation of the Elk Hills (California) lease nor would the pan-American Petroleum Transport Company have undertaken the construction of the Pearl Harbour (Honolulu) naval oil base had not Admiral John Robison, chief of the Naval Bureau of Engineering, convinced Mr. Doheny personally that a great war in the Pacific threatened the United States in 1921. He says tho admiral told him that the proposed Hawaiian oil base would be one link in the national defensive chain, on the strength of which depended the victory or defeat of the United Slates. Secondly, says Mr. Doheny, the naval lease policy of President Harding's administration had not originated with the Secretary for the Interior, Mr. Fall, but with high officers of tho Navy. Tho latter wero convinced that a great war in tho Pacific threatened the United States as the result of confidential reports submitted by Admiral Cleaves, who commanded tho forces in Asiatic waters in 1921. In the third place the Secretary to the Navy, Mr. Deuby, not Mr. Fall, suggested tho transfer of authority over the oil reserves from tho Navy to the Department of tho Interior. This transfer was discussed at a full meeting of the Cabinet, which the then Vice-President, Mr. Coolidge, attended. Fourthly, Mr. Doheny says his own courso was wholly determined by tho conference with Admiral Robison. The latter pictured an imminent and dreadful invasion of tho United States unless the Honolulu base were immediately constructed. Ho asked Mr. Doheny as a citizen to come to his country's aid in its hour of peril. Fifthly, tho real reason for calling the Washington Conference for the limitation of armaments, was to avoid this alleged Pacific crisis by diplomacy if possible. The secrecy which characterised the oil negotiations was duo solely to the fear that tho conference, then in session, might bo wrecked if tho Powers learned that while the United States was working for peace it was also preparing for war.