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A customer pauses outside a Texaco gas station in Dallas. Fifty years ago, the
company also was the center of a controversy when its president proved to be a Nazi
supporter.
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Texaco's latest woes are hardly its first
with a minority group.
ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM ASSOCIATE EDITOR
T
hose ever-smiling, perpetu-
ally clean, eager-to-please
gas-station workers
promised in their commer-
cial that "you can trust your car
to the man who wears the star."
Considering the company's his-
tory, a disclaimer might be in or-
der:
* Providing you have white
skin.
* Providing you're not Jewish.
* Providing you think the Nazis
were great.
Last week the White Plains,
N.Y.-based Texaco Inc., became
the center of a scandal after secret
tapes revealed corporate leaders
had made a number of racist re-
marks, including references to mi-
nority employees as "black jelly
beans."
Former treasurer Robert
Ulrich also made derogatory re-
marks about the African-Amer-
ican holiday Kwanzaa, noting,
"I'm still having trouble with
Chanukah ..."
Texaco chairman Peter Bijur
has since suspended two of the
men involved, J. David Keough,
chief financial and administrative
officer of the Texaco subsidiary,
and Peter Meade, Texaco's assis-
tant general manager in the fuel
and marketing depar tment. He
also cut off benefits to Mr. Ulrich
and to Richard Lundwall, former
senior coordinator for personnel
services.
Texaco leaders are adamant
that the current controversy can
be blamed on a few, and that
racism in no way reflects compa-
ny policy. But this is not the first
time Texaco has had its problems
with a minority group..
Fifty years ago, Texaco's pres-
ident, Torkild "Cap" Rieber,
proved to be a leading supporter
of the Nazis.
Rieber got his start as a Nor-
wegian skipper's mate aboard an
oil tanker. After Texaco purchased
the tanker, Rieber joined up with
the firm, where he had the repu-
tation of being a friendly, home-
spun kind of fellow.
This unpretentious exterior
masked Rieber's true personality
as an aggressive predator. He
quickly rose up in the Texaco
ranks, building a 260-mile
pipeline across the Andes to car-
ry Columbian oil to the sea. To
Rieber, the world was one big
marketplace and nothing could
stand irk, his way, including the
government.
Rieber first got into trouble
with the American government
in 1937 during the Spanish
Civil War. Texaco tankers des-
fined for Belgium ended up in
Spanish ports controlled by Fran-
cisco Franco and his nationalist,
right-wing forces with heavy po-
litical and military support from
fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.
The Roosevelt administration
warned Rieber to stay out of the
Spanish conflict, so he opted to di-
vert the oil shipments to Italy.
Franco later attributed the na-
tionalists' victory, in part, to the
shipments of Texaco oil.
Through his involvement in
Spain, Rieber made contact with
leading Nazis and agreed to sup-
ply Germany with Texaco's
Columbian oil. He continued to
ship the oil even after the out-
break of World War II in Sep-
tember 1939. To get around the
DOUBLE page 18
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