A Blog by the Editor of The Middle East Journal

Putting Middle Eastern Events in Cultural and Historical Context

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

James E. Akins

Ambassador James E. Akins has died at the age of 83. The Washington Post obituary covers all the major points: as an oil expert he predicted in the oil price spike of 1973 in a Foreign Affairs article, and was dismissed as an alarmist until, of course, it all came true later that year; as Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, he was fired by Henry Kissinger for his outspokenness. As an oil/Saudi expert he was a familiar figure around DC in the years after he left government.

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