Oil Embargo Urged Against Britain And U.S.: 1967

Manchester Evening News, June 6, 1967

‘Kuwait, Iraq, and Algeria, which supply nearly 30 per cent of Britain’s oil, today cut off supplies to the West.

At the same time Egypt closed the Suez Canal, through which much of Britain’s oil is shipped from the Persian Gulf.

These moves are reprisals for the alleged intervention of British and American planes in the Israeli war.

Both Britain and the US categorically denied that their planes had joined in the fighting.

‘Agitation for more action to stop the flow of Arab oil to the West reached fever pitch today.

In Cairo the International Confederation of Arab Trade Unions called on Arabs to blow up oil installations and pipelines “in any country that hesitates in halting oil pumping to the US and Britain”, and the powerful Cairo radio called on Arabs everywhere to sabotage and destroy British and American interests. . . . British and US consulates in Alexandria were attacked by howling mobs today. By the time troops restored order, the two consulates and the American Jefferson Library were ablaze. . . . In Cairo demonstrators shouted, “Down with [President] Johnson, Down with [Prime Minister] Wilson”, outside the US Embassy, but they were quickly dispersed by armed police.’

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