Zapata Petroleum
In 1953, George H. W. Bush and John Overbey formed a new business with Hugh Liedtke and Bill Liedtke named Zapata Petroleum Corporation (after the 1952 film Viva Zapata! in which Marlin Brando portrayed Mexican rebel Emiliano Zapata). [1]
The corporation was based in Midland, Texas. Hugh Liedtke became president, and George Bush became vice president of the new business venture. In 1954, the parent company formed Zapata Off-Shore Company, of which Bush was named president. In 1959, the company was split, leaving the Liedtkes with control of Zapata Petroleum Corporation and establishing Bush as the head of Zapata Off-Shore.
In 1963 the Liedtkes merged several oil companies, including Zapata Petroleum and South Penn Oil, to form the Pennzoil Company. Hugh Liedtke was the first president of Pennzoil.[2]
During the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis, Zapata allowed its oil rigs to be used as listening posts. In 1988, Barron's reported Zapata was "a part time purchasing front for the Central Intelligence Agency."[3]
- ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/01/obituaries/george-bushs-life-in-13-objects.html; Amy Schoenfeld Walker + Amy Marsh, Dec 1 2018, The New York Times
- ↑ National Archives Catalog #10480871, "Zapata Petroleum Corporation" https://catalog.archives.gov/id/10480871
- ↑ Ann Louise Bardach (2009). Ch: "The Island and the Empire" in "Without Fidel: A Death Foretold in Miami, Havana and Washington." p. 60