James E. Akins

Ambassador James E. Akins has died at the age of 83. The Washington Post obituary covers all the major points: as an oil expert he predicted in the oil price spike of 1973 in a Foreign Affairs article, and was dismissed as an alarmist until, of course, it all came true later that year; as Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, he was fired by Henry Kissinger for his outspokenness. As an oil/Saudi expert he was a familiar figure around DC in the years after he left government.