The ship's captain who was key to the Francoist victory

A few weeks ago, we discussed the Swedish businessman Olof Aschberg, who was known for his financial support of the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War. To find a similar example, but on the other side of the divide, we don't have to travel far, because right here in Scandinavia we find Torkild Rieber, the head of Texaco and a major financier of the Francoist side through the supply of oil.

When former Campsa executive José Antonio Álvarez Alonso received a telegram from Rieber with the phrase "Don't worry about the paymentsHe knew that his side, the rebels, had a good chance of winning the war. The company managing the monopoly had dismissed Álvarez shortly after the coup. He settled in Burgos, alongside the Francoist government, and looked through his contacts for someone who could help them. A few years later, during a visit to Port Arthur, Texas, he rejected the idea. The key man would be Rieber. Rieber's support for the Francoists wasn't a matter of money, but of ideology, because the Norwegian-born magnate had very strong fascist leanings, to the point that after the Civil War he also did business with the German Nazis, a result of his personal relationship with Hermann Göring. Rieber signed on to a ship sailing to America on a six-month route. He found the experience so interesting that upon returning home he enrolled in the naval academy. He was captain. In fact, from then on he was known as Captain Rieber. of exports and also of the maritime department. Just one year later, he was already part of the Texaco executive committee and in 1935 he managed to rise to the presidency.

Motilones Indians. Once the exploitation was acquired, Rieber would resell half to the Socony (Standard Oil Company of New York). The Civil War settled in Spain and directed the prospecting done in Oliana (Alt Urgell) in the joint venture between Socony and Cepsa.

While Colombian oil flowed endlessly, Rieber moved to Germany and met with Marshal Göring. He not only did business with the Nazis (selling them oil in exchange for ships), but also provided them with military intelligence about the U.S. Navy. These dealings with the Germans were the final straw, after he had already violated U.S. neutrality law by supplying oil to Franco's troops. In the summer of 1940, the Texaco board of directors forced him to resign as president. He then declared that he was stepping down "in view of the harm that could be caused to the company due to the unfair and unfounded criticism" that had "recently appeared in the press."

But his inactivity was short-lived, because only a couple of years later he was hired to manage the Barber Asphalt Company, a company founded in 1883 that dealt in oil rocks and was perpetually losing money. He subjected it to a profound restructuring, eventually turning it around to oil and shipbuilding, which allowed him to reverse its financial results. In 1951, when the Iranian Parliament nationalized the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (now BP), the World Bank appointed Rieber to manage the crisis, which ended with the coup against President Mossadegh.