Those of us who have covered OPEC meetings over the past few decades have often wished we could be flies on the wall at these closed door ministerial huddles in Vienna, Doha or Caracas. Last week those wishes came true. And it was pretty dramatic stuff.
The journalists who had flown in from five continents to cover the OPEC summit in Riyadh were milling about the press room, writing stories, transcribing taped interviews or chatting, with one ear tuned to the television set that was relaying live coverage of the pre-summit proceedings.
Nobody paid much attention to what his excellency the minister from Venezuela was saying until a Spanish-speaking journalist jumped up and ran to his computer, alerting the rest of the press pack that something was up.
The foreign, finance and oil ministers of OPEC's 12 member states were oblivious to the commotion they had caused as they continued deliberations over the wording of a summit communique behind closed doors. Or so they
thought.
Somehow, in a country where the media is tightly controlled, someone had forgotten to unplug the television cable.
Over in the small press room, there was a buzz of excitement as it became obvious that the ministerial deliberations on whether or not to mention the weak dollar in the final statement were not meant for the ears of the ladies and gentlemen of the media.
"To even mention that we are studying this might lead the dollar to fall more and it will add to the problems that our countries are already suffering from (as a result of the falling dollar," Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud
al Faisal was overheard saying while the supposed closed meeting he chaired was being aired. "It would be better to leave the issue to finance ministers rather than put it in the summit declaration, he said, adding: "Journalists will pounce on this and the dollar might collapse."
And pounce they did. The story made headline news in that it showed what was perceived as a split within the ranks of OPEC between the pro-US producing members such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE and Qatar and the anti-American camp of Venezuela and Iran, whose ministers had raised the matter in the first
place.
What was surprising about this revealing incident was not that it was allowed to happen at all but that the error was not detected sooner.
It was more than 15 to 20 minutes into the debate that a Saudi official walked into the press room and, ignoring loud protests from journalists, headed for the TV set in a vain effort to find the off switch. Finally, he gave up and just pulled the plug out of the socket and the screen went dark.
But by then the message was out.
The Saudi hosts were the victorious heroes of the drama played out to the world. They were the defenders of the US greenback. There was no mention of the weak dollar in the communique. The anti-US camp was defeated and pacified with promises of a sequel in another time and another place.
Given the outcome, however, one could not help but suspect that someone perhaps wanted to open a window and give the room an airing, so to speak, even if it meant letting the flies in as well.
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