The Alaskan Queen

I presume I am the only eyewitness who can say that Governor Palin is telling the truth, the whole truth and perhaps the future.

For thirty years, not many people spoke about Alaska and not many people, and they were people with information and power and knowledge, brought home to our whole country the 50 states of the union that there is an Alaska, there is a Prudhoe Bay, there is a hardworking, rapidly growing industrialized states which represents something from the past and, more importantly, represents an important part of our future. That is the place called Alaska.

We bought stocks like Alaska Interstate from Houston. Alaskan banks. And formed a small syndicate for Alaskan real estate. Actually, we made history. As the head of the small real estate syndicate I recruited Don Reynolds. Prior to me, he had only two clients. The Vatican and Joe Kennedy.

And then it died down.

In the early 1970's, I did become the only securities analyst living in New York City who talked constantly about Alaska. I went there every three months. I immediately met Governor Wally Hickel, and a year later I became friendly with Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska, the Senator who worked tirelessly in New York and Washington to explain the value, the importance of the State of Alaska. And then it died down.

The only politician who acted was President Nixon. Shortly after the October Arab oil embargo in 1973, he declared Project Independence. He was laughed at. Actually, Project Independence is nothing more than what Senator McCain today running for President is telling the world and telling the American people. We are just almost forty years too late.

The Trans-Alaska pipeline was eventually built. Two million barrels of oil flowed down, but the pipeline was not expanded, the Trans-Alaska gas pipeline was not built until Governor Palin started the construction. Alaska being a small state which in the last forty years has grown from 350,000 people to 650,000, did change because of oil. As Governor Palin, with an unusual but welcome enthusiastic manner said, "My whole family is in oil. My sister is in oil, my sister-in-law is in oil. My whole family is working for oil. Alaska oil, in partnership with the State, in partnership with Exxon, is here to stay. Surely oil made Alaska rich, but there is plenty for other folks in the Union."

It all happened in a few days. In 1971, Governor Hickel personally took me on his airplane to see Prudhoe Bay and the vast emptiness, hurting the kangaroos jumping over the pipeline, the territory to be destroyed, was a joke. Since I stayed in his hotel in Anchorage at Captain Cook's, I agreed with him, but I agreed with him wholeheartedly. He started to increase his real estate business and became a billionaire. Senator Gravel is still around. At the age of 77, he ran for President recently. He made a statement which quite frankly should have been made by many leading Republican or at least younger politicians, that he has seen Baskin Robbins in Vietnam on every street corner. Fifty thousand American boys died to have Baskin Robbins in Vietnam?

Meanwhile, our fifty thousand American boys died and our history has gone forward and our nation has gone greater and greater in debt, until we are told that $700 billion is leaving America every year, and T. Bone Pickens at his own expense on television emphasizes that this is the biggest monetary transfer in the history of mankind. Many things happened but the American people didn't really talk about Alaska.

Governor Palin said in less than a week and understood by every living American, partially because she represented the modern American executive power in the hands of a woman, the beauty of an American family who worked itself up from sports announcements to government officials and oil industry employees, she explained to the American people that Alaska is here. We neglected Alaska for forty years due to the fact that it was 35 years ago when I was last visited Anchorage, Fairbanks, and other parts of the country the investment interest died. But Governor Palin brought home the fact that we Americans are not finished. Surely we have $700 billion to waste on foreign oil in the year 2008 and 2009. But one of the hopes of what we have is Alaska itself and what she conveyed to the 40 million people who watched her that the people of Alaska, the leaders of Alaska, the spirit of Alaska has never left the other 49 states. It was the 49th state and the American politicians who left Alaska, but it's not too late. The friendly hand from Anchorage and Prudhoe Bay are here. Take it. We need it, and we welcome the spirit of the candidate for the Vice Presidency of the Republican Party, Governor Palin.

There were many politicians who had the title of Energy Secretary. The most colorful probably was Governor William Richardson of New Mexico, who ran for President recently, who said he was the most knowledgeable member of the Democratic team. Governor, let me ask you a blunt question. Apart from running for President, apart from having friends, close friends, people who finance you like Eddie Gilbert, the ex-convict whom Robert Kennedy pulled back from Brazil where he escaped, apart from running for President, I'm asking a question. As Energy Secretary, like other people ahead of you,

What Have You Done for Us Lately?

Let's face it, Eddie Gilbert is in real estate -- you were supposed to popularize Prudhoe Bay.

The issue in the 2008 election is energy and money and spirit. And out of the blue, and we Americans, all of us, should be proud, a young energetic mother of five stood up and said to all Americans, we Alaskans are ready. Let us forget the last 30 or 40 years. We Alaskans are here to stay with the other 49 states.

I cannot foresee the future. I cannot foresee the future for Governor Palin except that her spirit, her contribution, her accomplishments and her vision permanently entered American history. Quite frankly, I can only think of a few political leaders, perhaps Franklin Roosevelt, who tried to stop the Depression by emphasizing that we Americans, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

The Governor stated to the American people, the only way we lose the energy war is by neglecting and forgetting Alaska. She entered not only the political world, but every home in America and probably in most homes the wife of the family will never forget the personality of the future Vice President of the United States.

Color and performance undoubtedly was there. I was thinking that if tomorrow construction would start at Prudhoe Bay on a new pipeline, Katharine Hepburn would probably be scrubbing the floor. Humphrey Bogart would stand in a corner and complain. However, Governor Palin like Katharine Hepburn, will never leave American history.