Torkild Rieber – Wikipédia

Torkild Rieber (VASS, 1882-New York, 1968) was an immigrant Norwegian in the United States and became president of the Texaco petroleum company in 1935.

Torkild Rieber was born in Voss, Norway, the 13 mars 1882 ^{[ first ]} . Son of a small wood industrialist, he begins to work at fourteen, and embarks aboard a commercial boat. Five years later, he became an officer of the merchant navy before taking his first command in 1903. In 1905, he worked for Texaco, for whom he ordered oil tankers. In 1909, he supervised the construction of an oil terminal in Bayonne. President Joseph S. Cullinan brought him to the Texan headquarters of the company.

In 1913, both left Texaco and Rieber accompanied Cullinan in the creation of another oil company. In 1927, Texaco reminded Rieber to supervise its production and refining facilities. In 1935 he was appointed president of Texaco, and the magazine Time devoted his cover to him in May 1936 ^{[ 2 ] , [ 3 ]} .

In 1937, when the United States practiced a policy of strict neutrality ^{[ 4 ]} , he delivers petroleum to the Francois forces, by various diverted means, for a total amount of $ 6 million, payable after the war. He also delivers oil to Germany, who in return gives him oil tankers: some sources indicate that he commands nine oil tankers at the Deutsche Werft sites in Hamburg ^{[ 5 ]} , 7 will be delivered before 1941 ^{[ 6 ] , [ 7 ]} . Indeed, in 1936, Rieber ordered several tankers at the shipyard Deutsche Werft in Hamburg, Germany, in exchange for oil ^{[ 8 ]} .

Rieber meets Goering, and the January 29, 1940 , he is received by Roosevelt, to whom he transmits a message from Goering inviting the United States to no longer support the United Kingdom, but to sign with Germany a vast peace plan in which the United States would be opened Unlimited access to the European continent placed under the hegemony of Germany ^{[ 9 ]} . Roosevelt hastens to refuse. Indeed, Rieber met Marshal Hermann Göring in 1940 and received a message from Hitler to President Roosevelt, inviting him to support the Berlin plan for a European Union, led by Germany, which would open its doors to the States -United. Roosevelt rejected the offer. Rieber also discussed with German agent Gerhard Alois Westrick (in) , which collected information on American armaments and intentions concerning European war ^{[ 8 ]} .

The same year, he met the German Westrick in New York and promoted his establishment; Westrick is responsible for obtaining information on the American war effort. Rieber frequents the business community favorable to German interests (Henry Ford, James D. Moosey, Sosthenes Behn), and participated in the Waldorf Astoria dinner on June 26, 1940, to celebrate French defeat. The magazine Life devotes a complete file to him ^{[ ten ]} . The photo of his office shows a terrestrial globe which is reminiscent of that of Charlie Chaplin in The dictator .
Westrick recruits him to represent German interests in the United States; THE August 12, 1940 , it’s the New York Herald Tribune ^{[ 11 ]} which reveals the bonds of Rieber with Germany ^{[ twelfth ] , [ 13 ]} ; The content of Westrick’s links with the Abwehr will not be known until later. Immediately dismissed from the management of Texaco ^{[ 14 ]} , Rieber will continue his career in the petroleum industry ^{[ 15 ]} ; Among other things, he will carry out a mission in Iran on behalf of the World Bank with Mossadegh in 1953 ^{[ 16 ]} , so just before it is deposited accordingly of the Ajax operation. He died the August 10, 1968 .