Shortages and Short FusesThe state of the American infrastructure system was quickly brought to attention. While President Kennedy had signed an infrastructure bill in the later days of his first term, his bill focused on roads and bridges. Most of the energy grid infrastructure was relying on a patchwork system left over from the era of Robber Barons, with much of the gas and oil industry being built around aging equipment and procedures put in place under the reign of Standard Oil. The world had changed dramatically, but the American energy system hadn’t.
The fuel crisis couldn’t have come at a worse time in America. By 1968, more people owned cars than ever before, increasing the demand for gas exponentially. As the demand increased, the pressure on the aging infrastructure increased as well. This had led to a series of small failures over the last decade, a minor leak on an offshore drilling rig in 1962, a small fire are a refinery in Oklahoma in 1964, an oil train derailment in 1967, but nothing that caused as big of an impact as the Esso Tanker Crisis would have on its own. When compound with the Houston refinery fire, the impact was astronomical.
Almost four million barrels of oil were produced in Texas per day, with a majority of those refineries being in the Houston area. The February 1969 refinery fire disrupted the distribution system in two ways. First, the refinery itself was destroyed and its production ceased. Second, it spooked other refineries from pursuing aggressive production schedules. The industry reigning in its own production schedule, coupled with social pressures to protect the environment and the strain on the existing infrastructure grid, crippled America. People had moved further from their jobs because they could drive to work. Now they couldn’t afford the gas to drive from the suburbs to the city.
Nationalizing the oil industry was one of the first solutions considered in the Oval Office. Proposed by Commerce Secretary C.R. Smith, the plan would have created the National Fuel and Oil Administration to oversee the production, distribution, and sale of oil and gas for “no longer than a year” to give the industry time to “recover and reevaluate its positions.” Vidal entertained the idea, as a believer in the principle that the best government is a strong government, although his political advisers threw up red flags all over the idea. Any nationalization would immediately bring up charges of communism and “destabilize our political agenda” for the rest of the term. Vidal was not persuaded by this analysis. Even though the proposed constitutional amendment to create term limits for the presidency had failed in the 1940s, the two-term convention held strong in the decades since. Vidal made two decisions on February 11, 1969. First, he wouldn’t be seeking a third term as President. Second, he was nationalizing the oil industry.
On February 15, 1969, Vidal signed Executive Order 11237, which created the National Fuel and Oil Administration. Vidal chose billionaire oilman George H.W. Bush to lead the NFOA and gave him broad authority to respond to the fuel crisis and “fix it”. Bush’s first action was to stabilize fuel prices by setting a standard national cost of 75˘ per gallon, allowing many people to be able to afford gas while also keeping the price high enough to create revenue. Bush also dramatically expanded the number of employees in the oil industry, hiring thousands of unemployed young men to modernize the infrastructure system. The issue of a fuel ration was another hotly debated topic. Bush was in favor of a ration, to alleviate stress on the system as it rebuilt, but Vidal’s political advisers called the idea “the end to any hope of a Vidal legacy.” On this issue, Vidal sided with his advisers and nixed the idea of fuel rationing in 1969.
With Bush managing the NFOA, Vidal turned his attention to other matters. He had made the United States’ nuclear stockpile a campaign issue, calling it “dangerous” and “unsettling” that the country had so many nuclear warheads that had no realistic chance of being used. As the United States was not a leading global power, Vidal argued, there was not a need for such deadly weapons. Building off an agreement he had reached with Soviet Premier Brezhnev in 1965, Vidal proposed the “SMART Act” to Congress in May of 1969. The bill called for the reduction of the U.S. nuclear force by 10% every year for the next decade, with the decommissioning of nuclear warheads and the conversion of nuclear plants to civilian use. The SMART Act also declared that the official United States policy “with respect to the current tension between the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union is neutrality” and created a new federal agency, the Department of Energy, to oversee the demilitarization of the American nuclear program.
The SMART Act caused an uproar. Unionists flew into a rage, calling the President a communist, with the most extreme alleging he was a puppet of the Soviets. Even many Coalitioners were only tepid in their support of the Act, nervous of the implications for their own political futures if they tied themselves to the President’s plan. Vidal’s approval ratings had dropped to 45% after the fuel crisis began; they had fallen to 35% in some polls after the SMART Act was released. Senate Coalition Leader Daniel Patrick Moynihan pleaded with the President to take a less dramatic approach to the nuclear program, instead proposing the cessation of the creation of new nuclear warheads while “safely maintaining” the current stockpile. Vidal, never one for compromise, was adamant that “the only way a parent can sleep safely at night is if they know their child won’t be killed by a nuclear accident.”
As Vidal pressed ahead with the SMART Act, the nation turned against him. A man once called “the Most Popular President” since Franklin Roosevelt was now struggling to find a political mandate. A man who had single-handedly redefined the American political system was fighting to hold it together. Over the summer of 1969 Vidal set out on a speaking tour to sell the American people on the SMART Act and “tell them what’s in their best interest.” Some of his advisers cautioned him about making such a pitch in such a public manner but, as usual, Vidal was going to be Vidal.
Many of the events on the speaking tour were raucous, with many people, angry already over the fuel crisis, crammed into small spaces in summer heat to discuss the end of the American nuclear program. At one event in Columbus, Ohio, Vidal had to be rushed out the backdoor of the venue as the angry crowd attempted to rush the stage. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the worst of it.
After speaking to a fairly supporting crowd in Los Angeles, the President was exiting the Ambassador Hotel through the kitchen when a man in a cleaning uniform lunged forward and fired three shots from his .22 Caliber revolver at Vidal.
