Great Grain Robbery

The Elements of Power: A Story of War, Technology, and the Dirtiest Supply Chain on Earth

by Nicolas Niarchos  · 20 Jan 2026  · 654pp  · 170,150 words

amounts that the Soviets: Nossiter, “Soviets Reportedly Bought Up Cobalt Before Zaire Invasion.” Moscow’s traders had used such stealth buying strategies before. During the “Great Grain Robbery” of 1973, after a drought in the U.S.S.R., Nikolai Belousov, a Soviet bureaucrat, flew to New York and negotiated private purchases of

The World for Sale: Money, Power and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources

by Javier Blas and Jack Farchy  · 25 Feb 2021  · 565pp  · 134,138 words

prices also climbed. With grain prices rising, the price of meat shot higher too. 37 The public was outraged. The episode became known as the ‘Great Grain Robbery’. Cargill reacted to the outrage by trying to demonstrate that it hadn’t profited from the hunger of American citizens. For the first time in

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done in decades of trading metals. Soon it had expanded into grains, coffee and sugar trading. The agricultural commodity traders, flush with cash from the Great Grain Robbery, also began to look to other markets. Cargill broke into metals in 1972 by buying C. Tennant, Sons & Co, a metals trader, for $5.95

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state agencies. For metals, there was Raznoimport (which also handled exports); for grain, there was Exportkhleb (which also negotiated imports, as it had during the Great Grain Robbery); and for oil, there was Soyuznefteexport. The traders had focused their efforts on wooing the Soviet bureaucrats who ran these agencies. In metals, Felix Posen

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the global commodity markets. The traders had understood how valuable the insight from Cargill’s physical trading business could be since the days of the Great Grain Robbery, when the company had taken a small loss on its deals with the Soviet Union but the traders in Geneva had made a killing with

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, p. 55. 34 Philipp Brothers Collection: box 1, folder 11, p. 143. 35 The best chronicle of the Soviet grain purchases is Trager, James, The Great Grain Robbery (New York: Ballantine Books, 1975). In addition, the US Congress held hearings into the purchases, including ‘Russian Grain Transactions’ (Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, July

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, 326 animal feed trade, 261 billionaires, 19 Communist Bloc, trade with, 30 –31 Continental acquisition (1998), 170 , 173 –4 global financial crisis (2007–8), 243 Great Grain Robbery (1972), 38 –42 , 57 , 69 , 135 , 310 IPO, views on, 277 –8 metals trade, 57 profits, 38 , 248 , 249 shareholders, 277 –8 Soviet Union, trade

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, 239 –42 food price crises (2007–10), 239 –42 , 248 , 250 , 252 , 255 –6 futures trade, 102 , 243 , 246 Glencore, 245 Great Grain Robbery (1972), 38 –42 , 57 , 69 , 135 , 310 Granaria, 245 Great Grain Robbery (1972), 38 –42 , 57 , 69 , 135 , 310 Green, Pincus, 50 , 52 –3 , 55 , 57 –8 , 60 , 61 , 94 , 97 , 118

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, 65 , 120 , 163 , 164 , 236 , 237 , 243 Neverland , 286 New Comfort , 323 New Mexico, United States, 323 New York, United States Aluminum for Defense, 75 Great Grain Robbery (1972), 38 –42 Jesselson in, 24 , 28 Rich in, 37 , 47 , 58 Rotterdam market and, 63 telegraph in, 26 Weisser in, 35 New York Mercantile

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), 17 , 133 –5 , 139 –50 , 151 –3 , 161 , 165 , 207 , 208 Cuba, trade with, 151 , 152 , 153 , 156 Deuss deal (1976), 66 Exportkhleb, 38 , 135 Great Grain Robbery (1972), 38 –42 , 57 , 69 , 135 , 310 Jamaica, relations with, 77 , 86 Mabanaft, trade with, 22 –4 , 32 , 33 –4 , 44 , 51 , 135 , 261 , 302

Kissinger: A Biography

by Walter Isaacson  · 26 Sep 2005  · 1,330pp  · 372,940 words

phrase that goes, “It is no accident that . . .”) One of the economic arrangements to emerge was the infamous grain deal of 1972, known as the Great Grain Robbery. Handled mainly by the ebullient agricultural secretary, Earl Butz, it arranged for the Soviets to make major purchases of surplus American grain in return for

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, Primacy or World Order, 64; WHY, 1205, 1209, 1213. 32. Peter Peterson, Nov. 26, 1989; Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation, 305–7; WHY, 1271; Trager, The Great Grain Robbery; Hersh, The Price of Power, 343–48, 531–34. 33. The description of the ICBM and SLBM dispute is largely based on Détente and Confrontation

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, 1989. Tivnan, Edward. The Lobby. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987. Toynbee, Arnold. A Study of History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1946 & 1957. Trager, James. The Great Grain Robbery. New York: Ballantine, 1975. Truscott, Lucian, IV. Dress Gray. New York: Doubleday, 1978. Valeriani, Richard. Travels With Henry. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1979. Viorst, Milton. Sands

Flash Crash: A Trading Savant, a Global Manhunt, and the Most Mysterious Market Crash in History

by Liam Vaughan  · 11 May 2020  · 268pp  · 81,811 words

short-seller spread negative rumors and pushed them lower; supposed competitors formed a nefarious pact. In 1974, after a particularly egregious episode known as the “Great Grain Robbery,” President Gerald Ford created the CFTC as a kind of designated cop for futures akin to the SEC. But a few years later, when three

Living in a Material World: The Commodity Connection

by Kevin Morrison  · 15 Jul 2008  · 311pp  · 17,232 words

and purchase food on a futures basis,’ said Shuff, who has a son who is also a trader on the CBOT floor. And so the ‘Great Grain Robbery’ ensued. The Soviets bought a quarter of US grain crops, sending prices to their highest levels since 1917. It triggered a massive escalation of domestic