Zapata Petroleum
Background
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.[2]
CIA ties
During the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis, Zapata allowed the CIA to use its oil rigs as listening posts. In 1988, Barron's also reported that Zapata was "a part time purchasing front for the Central Intelligence Agency."[3]
Also in the early 1960s, Zapata arranged several secret deals with Oil Executive and UC Regent Edwin Pauley, who was working closely with CIA Director John McCone, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, and future California Governor & President Ronald Reagan to defeat anti-war, civil rights, and environmental justice protests across University of California campuses.[4]
Pennzoil
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.[5]
Sources
- ↑ 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
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_W._Pauley
- ↑ National Archives Catalog #10480871, "Zapata Petroleum Corporation" https://catalog.archives.gov/id/10480871