by The Big Rich: The Rise;Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes
CHAPTER 8: WAR AND PEACE
Information in this chapter is drawn from Hill, Hurt, Van Buren, Wolfe, Kilman and Wright, and other books, as well as contemporary newspaper articles. Work on the Inch lines is described in Don Carleton, A Breed So Rare: The Life of J. R. Parten, Liberal Texas Oil Man, 1896-1992 (Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1998) as well as in Christopher J. Castaneda and Joseph A. Pratt, From Texas to the East: A Strategic History of the Texas Eastern Corporation (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1993). Everette DeGolyer’s Middle Eastern travels are described in Yergin and in Lon Tinkle, Mr. De: A Biography of Everette Lee DeGolyer (Boston: Little Brown, 1970).
1 Cited in Richard Goodwin, Texas Oil, American Dreams: A Study of the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association (Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1996).
2 Hurt, 219.
CHAPTER 9: THE NEW WORLD
Information in this chapter is derived from contemporary newspaper and magazine articles, as well as Wallace Davis, Corduroy Road: The Story of Glenn H. McCarthy (Houston: Anson Jones Press, 1951). The story of McCarthy’s dealings with Equitable are taken from reports in the Equitable archives in New York. Biographical information about Edna Ferber came from Julie Goldsmith Gilbert, Ferber: A Biography of Edna Ferber and Her Circle (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1978).
1 Cited in Leon Jaworski, Confession and Avoidance: A Memoir (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1979), 54-55.
2 Houston Chronicle, Sept. 26, 1950.
3 New York Times, Sept. 28, 1952.
CHAPTER 10: “A CLUMSY AND IMMEASURABLE POWER”
Information in chapters 10 and 11 is taken from a variety of contemporary magazine and newspaper articles, as well as books cited below.
1 “Texas Business and McCarthy,” Fortune, May 1954.
2 Houston Chronicle, Oct. 29, 1948.
3 Kilman and Wright, 270-71.
4 Kilman and Wright, 281.
5 The Nation, Nov. 3, 1951.
6 Hurt, 151.
7 Jerome Tuccille, Kingdom: The Story of the Hunt Family of Texas (Washington: Beard Books, 1984), 229.
8 Ibid., 231.
9 Caro, 274.
10 Ibid.
11 James Reston, Jr., Lone Star: The Life of John Connally (New York: Harper & Row, 1989), 162.
12 Ibid., 163.
13 Caro, The Means of Ascent.
14 Kilman and Wright, 293.
15 Cited in George Norris Green, The Establishment in Texas Politics: The Primitive Years, 1938-1957 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1979), 147.
16 Drew Pearson papers, LBJ Presidential Library.
17 Jack Anderson, Washington Expose (Washington DC: Public Affairs Press, 1967), 214-16.
18 Cited in Louise Galambos, and Daun Van Ee, ed. The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower: The Presidency: Keeping the Peace (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001).
19 “Texas Business and McCarthy,” Fortune, May 1954.
20 Hurt, 158-62.
21 Fortune, May 1954.
22 Wolfe, The Murchisons, 186.
23 Reston, 166.
24 Anthony Summers, The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon (New York: Penguin Books, 2000), 85.
25 Reston, 167.
26 Summers, Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1993).
27 Ibid., 188.
28 “Texas Business and McCarthy,” Fortune, May 1954.
CHAPTER 11: “TROGLODYTE, GENUS TEXANA”
1 Wolfe, The Murchinsons, 200.
2 Ibid., 201.
3 New York Times, April 23, May 2, and May 9, 1954.
4 Wolfe, 214-15.
5 Time, May 22, 1954.
6 The Nation, March 22, 1954.
7 Houston Post, May 23, 1954.
8 New York Times, Aug. 18, 1952.
9 Ibid., March 20, 1955.
10 Dallas Morning News, Nov. 3, 1961.
11 Houston Post, May 9, 1954.
12 Thanks to the Margaret Chase Smith library for this correspondence.
13 Fuermann, Reluctant Empire, 50.
14 Robert Sherrill, The Accidental President (New York: Grossman Publishers, 1967), 271; The Washington Post, September 22, 1970.
15 Caro, Master of the Senate, 663.
16 The payment would eventually be linked to a lobbyist representing Superior Oil of Houston.
17 John B. Judis, William F. Buckley, Jr: Patron Saint of the Conservatives (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988), 120.
CHAPTER 12: THE GOLDEN YEARS
Information in this chapter is derived from a variety of sources, including Hurt, Hill, Van Buren, Wolfe’s, The Murchisons, Kilman and Wright, as well as John Bainbridge, The Super Americans (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1961).
1 Undated article by Stanley Walker in The New Yorker.
2 Dallas Morning News, Oct. 26, 1956.
3 Wolfe, The Murchisons, 150.
4 Kai Bird, The Chairman: John L. McCloy. The Making of the American Establishment (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 431.
5 Houston Post, Dec. 5, 1964.
6 Cited in James Presley, Saga of Wealth: The Rise of the Texas Oilman (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1978), 219.
CHAPTER 13: RISING SONS
Information in this chapter is derived from Hill; Hurt; Van Buren; Wolfe, The Murchisons; and contemporary newspaper and magazine articles, especially those in the New York Times, Life, and Time.
1 Hill, 261.
2 Ibid., 251.
3 Hurt, 182.
4 Time, June 16, 1961.
5 Wolfe, The Murchisons, 168.
6 Dick Hitt, Classic Clint: The Laughs and Times of Clint Murchison Jr. (Plano, Tex.: Wordware Publishing, 1992); Hitt, 42.
7 Wolfe, The Murchisons, 270-71.
8 Hurt, 184.
9 Hitt, 82.
10 Ibid., 85.
CHAPTER 14: SUN, SEX, SPAGHETTI—AND MURDER
Information in this chapter is derived from Hurt and Wolfe’s The Murchisons, as well as contemporary newspaper and magazine articles. The story of the Di Portanova-Cullen feud is derived from depositions and filings at the Harris County Courthouse and especially John Davidson, “The Very Rich Life of Enrico Di Portanova,” Texas Monthly, March 1982.
1 Hurt, 238-39.
2 Ibid., 240-42.
3 Cited in Don Graham, Cowboys and Cadillacs: How Hollywood Looks at Texas (Austin: Texas Monthly Press, 1983).
4 Houston Chronicle, Jan. 28, 1964.
5 Cited in Warren Leslie, Dallas Public and Private (Dallas; SMU Press, 1998).
6 Wolfe, The Murchisons, 344.
7 Ibid., 345.
8 Ibid., 286.
9 This scene is elegantly described in James Conaway, The Texans (New York: Popular Library, 1978).
10 Wall Street Journal, Sept. 6, 1983.
CHAPTER 15: WATERGATE, TEXAS-STYLE
The principal source for this chapter is Hurt, augmented by contemporary newspaper accounts, especially in the Dallas Morning News.
1 Hurt, 277-78.
2 Ibid., 281-82.
3 Ibid., 284.
4 Ibid., 293.
5 Hurt, 296.
6 Fay, 23.
7 Hurt, 424.
CHAPTER 16: THE LAST BOOM
The primary source materials for this chapter are Hurt; Wolfe, The Murchisons; and personal interviews.
1 Wolfe, The Murchisons, 353.
2 Ibid., 360.
3 Ibid., 371.
4 Ibid., 373.
5 Ibid., 378.
6 Hurt, 354.
7 Dallas Morning News, Sept. 14, 1975.
8 Hurt, 391.
CHAPTER 17: THE GREAT SILVER CAPER
Information in this chapter is derived from Hurt, contemporary newspaper and magazine articles, and especially Stephen Fay, Beyond Greed: The Hunt Family’s Bold Attempt to Corner the Silver Market (London: Penguin Books, 1982).
1 Cited in Bruce McNall
, with Michael D’Antonio, Fun While It Lasted (New York: Hyperion, 2003).
2 Cited in Fay, 110-11.
CHAPTER 18: THE BUST
Information on Clint Murchison Jr. in this chapter is derived from Wolfe, The Murchisons, and from contemporary newspaper accounts, especially those in the Dallas Morning News. Sections on the Bass family were taken from personal interviews augmented with press accounts. The story of the Hunt family’s travails and the Shamrock’s demise were taken from personal interviews and contemporary newspaper and magazine accounts.
1 Wolfe, The Murchisons, 389.
2 Ibid., 410.
3 Ibid., 411.
4 Dallas Morning News, Oct. 25, 1986.
5 Houston Chronicle, March 17, 1986.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Research for this book was drawn from a variety of sources, including interviews, documents from two dozen archives in Texas and elsewhere, plus more than two hundred books and thousands of newspaper and magazine articles on subjects from the families themselves to the Texas oil industry to the rise of modern American conservatism.
Much of my research is original, but much is not. It’s important to differentiate between the two, mostly to give credit to the writers from whose work I’ve borrowed. Chief among these are Harry Hurt, author of the definitive Hunt-family biography, Texas Rich, and Jane Wolfe, author of The Murchisons. Both authors’ work informed just about every chapter in this one, especially in later sections. Chapter 15, which deals with the wiretapping travails of Bunker and Herbert Hunt, was drawn largely from Hurt. Likewise, the portrait of Clint Murchison Jr. contained here is based mostly on Wolfe. In both cases I found I simply couldn’t improve significantly on what these two talented authors had done more than two decades ago.
Three others books are important to note as well. Clint, an authorized biography of Clint Murchison by his longtime secretary, Ernestine Orrick Van Buren, was invaluable, as was Hugh Roy Cullen’s authorized biography, 1954’s Hugh Roy Cullen: A Story of American Opportunity. The third book I would mention is H.L. & Lyda by Margaret Hunt Hill.
What follows is a list of books I cite or drew from for The Big Rich:
Abramson, Howard S. Hero in Disgrace: The True Discoverer of the North Pole, Frederick A. Cook. San Jose: toExcel, 1991.
Alexander, Herbert E. Financing Politics: Money, Elections and Political Reform. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1992.
———. Money in Politics. Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs, 1972.
Allen, George E. Presidents Who Have Known Me. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1950.
———. Presidents Who Have Known Me, 1960 Edition. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960.
Allen, William, and Sue Hastings Taylor. Aransas: The Life of a Texas Coastal County. Austin: Eakin, 1997.
Ambrose, Stephen E. Eisenhower: Soldier and President. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990.
Anderson, Jack. Washington Exposé. Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs, 1967.
Anderson, William. The Wild Man from Sugar Creek: The Political Career of Eugene Talmadge. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1975.
Armstrong, George. Memoirs of George W. Armstrong. Austin: Steck, 1958.
———. The Zionists. Privately published, 1950.
Ashman, Charles. Connally: The Adventures of Big Bad John. New York: William Morrow & Co., 1974.
Bainbridge, John. The Super Americans. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1961.
Baker, Bobby, with Larry L. King. Wheeling and Dealing: Confessions of a Capitol Hill Operator. New York: W.W. Norton, 1978.
Ball, Douglas, and Dan S. Turner. This Fascinating Oil Business. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965.
Barragy, T. J. Gathering Texas Gold: J. Frank Dobie and the Men Who Saved the Longhorns. Cayo Del Grullo Press, n.d.
Bell, Douglas, ed. The Radical Right. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1964.
Bird, Kai. The Chairman: John J. McCloy and the Making of the American Establishment. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.
Bjerre-Poulsen, Niels. Right Face: Organizing the American Conservative Movement 1945-65. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2002.
Boatright, Mody. Folklore of the Oil Industry. Dallas: SMU Press, 1963.
Boatright, Mody C., and William A. Owens. Tales from the Derrick Floor: A People’s History of the Oil Industry. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1970.
Bredeson, Carmen. The Spindletop Gusher: The Story of the Texas Oil Boom. Brookfield, Conn.: Millbrook Press, 1997.
Brown, Stanley H. H.L Hunt. Chicago: Playboy Press, 1976.
Bryce, Robert. Cronies: Oil, the Bushes and the Rise of Texas, America’s Superstate. New York: Public Affairs, 2004.
Burst, Ardis. The Three Families of H. L. Hunt. New York: Weidenfield & Nicholson, 1988.
Byrd, David Harold. I’m an Endangered Species. Houston: Pacesetter Press, 1978.
Carleton, Don E. A Breed So Rare: The Life of J. R. Parten, Liberal Texas Oil Man, 1896-1992. Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1998.
———. Red Scare! Right-wing Hysteria, Fifties Fanaticism and Their Legacy in Texas. Austin: Texas Monthly, 1985.
Caro, Robert A. Master of the Senate. New York: Knopf, 2002.
———. Means of Ascent. New York: Random House, 1990.
———. Path to Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson. New York: Random House, 1981.
Cartwright, Gary. Blood Will Tell: The Murder Trials of T. Cullen Davis. New York: Pocket, 1979.
Castaneda, Christopher James. Invisible Fuel: Manufactured and Natural Gas in America, 1800-2000. New York: Twayne, 1999.
———. Regulated Enterprise: Natural Gas Pipelines and Northeastern Markets, 1938-1954. Columbus: Ohio State, 1993.
Castaneda, Christopher J., and Joseph A. Pratt. From Texas to the East: A Strategy History of the Texas Eastern Corporation. College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1993.
Castaneda, Christopher J., and Clarance M. Smith. Gas Pipelines and the Emergency of America’s Regulatory State. Cambridge: Cambridge Press, 1996.
Chestnutt, N. P. Southern Union. El Paso: Mangan Books, 1979.
Clark, James A., and Michel T. Halbouty. The Last Boom: The Exciting Saga of the Discovery of the Greatest Oil Field in America. Shearer, 1972.
———. Spindletop: The True Story of the Oil Discovery that Changed the World. Houston: Gulf Publishing, 1952.
Coleman, Loren. Tom Slick and the Search for the Yeti. Boston: Faber & Faber, 1989.
Conaway, James. The Texans. New York: Popular Library, 1978.
Connolly, John, with Mickey Herskowitz. In History’s Shadow. New York: Hyperion, 1993.
Conway, Flo, and Jim Siegelman. Holy Terror: The Fundamentalist War on America’s Freedoms in Religion, Politics and Our Private Lives. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1982.
Cook, Blanche Wiesen. Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume 2, The Defining Years. New York: Penguin, 1999.
Cook, Fred J. The Nightmare Decade. New York: Random House, 1971.
Crawford, Anne Fears, and Jack Keever. John B. Connolly: Portrait in Power. Austin: Jenkins, 1973.
Dallek, Robert. Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times 1908-1960. New York: Oxford Press, 1991.
Davidson, Chandler. Race and Class in Texas Politics. Princeton: Princeton University, 1990.
Davis, Wallace. Corduroy Road: The Story of Glenn H. McCarthy. Houston: Anson Jones Press, 1951.
Day, James M. The Black Giant: A History of the East Texas Oil Field and Oil Industry Skulduggery & Trivia. Austin: Eakin Press, 2003.
Diamond, Sara. Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States. New York: Guilford, 1995.
Dies, Martin. Martin Dies’ Story. New York: Bookmailer, 1963.
Dillon, David. The Architecture of O’Neil Ford. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999.
Donahue, Jack. Wildcatter: The Story of Michel T. Halbouty and the Search for Oil. New York: McGraw Hill, 1979.
Dugger, Ronnie. The P
olitician: The Life and Times of Lyndon Johnson. Old Saybrook: Konecky & Konecky, 1982.
Edwards, Lee. The Conservative Revolution: The Movement That Remade America. New York: Free Press, 1999.
Eisenhower, Dwight D. Mandate for Change: The White House Years. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1963.
Engler, Robert. The Politics of Oil. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961.
Epstein, Benjamin R., and Arnold Forster. The Radical Right. New York: Random House, 1966.