Political and military organization of the Viet Cong was complex, with a series of well-constructed, overlapping networks, committees and organisations. Material aid was primarily provided through the well-established, ingenious Hồ Chí Minh trail which withstood the most sustained bombing campaign in history.

The 1973 oil crisis began in October 1973 when the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) proclaimed an oil embargo. The embargo was targeted at nations perceived as supporting Israel during the Yom Kimppur War. The initial nations targeted were Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, the UK and the USA.

In 1948 the State of Israel was created. However much of the Arab population in the region refused to acknowledge the Israeli state and in the following decades small attacks periodically led to a conflict. One of these Arab-Israeli wars, the Yom Kimppur War, began when Egypt and Syria attacked Israel. After the Soviet Union began sending arms to Egypt and Syria, U.S. President Richard Nixon and other European leaders began an effort to resupply Israel.

In response, members of the Organization of the OAPEC reduced their petroleum production and proclaimed an embargo on oil shipments. Though the Yom Kippur War ended in late October, the embargo and limitations on oil production continued, sparking an international energy crisis. 

 After the embargo was announced, the price of oil shot from $3 per barrel to $12. After decades of abundant supply and growing consumption, Americans now faced price hikes and fuel shortages, causing lines to form at gasoline stations around the country. In addition to causing major problems in the lives of consumers, the energy crisis was a huge blow to the American automotive industry, which had for decades turned out bigger and bigger cars and would now be outpaced by Japanese manufacturers producing smaller and more fuel-efficient models.

Though the embargo was not enforced uniformly in Europe, the price hikes led to an energy crisis of even greater proportions than in the United States. Countries such as Great Britain, Germany, Switzerland, Norway and Denmark placed limitations on driving, boating and flying.

The oil embargo was lifted in March 1974, but oil prices remained high, and the effects of the energy crisis lingered throughout the decade. In order to overcome that situation the USA and other Europeans countries adopted a movement toward an energy reform. Efforts were made to stimulate oil production as well as to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and find alternative sources of power, including renewable energy sources such as solar or wind power, as well as nuclear power. 

The main purpose of Cold War espionage was to gather information and intelligence about the enemy, particularly their military and technical capabilities. They used many sources to spy  on each other such as paid informers, double-agents, stolen documents, intercepted communications, ‘bugs’ (listening devices) and other means of surveillance. Agents also carried out disruptive missions, such as carrying out sabotage operations and kidnapping or assassinating enemy agents or politicians.   The success of their mission and their survival was based on looking and behaving like ordinary members of whichever society they were infiltrated. 

All major Cold War powers had at least one government agency that were in charge of analyzing the information that spies gathered in their missions.  

In the United States, the agency that was in charge of it was the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The CIA began as the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a military branch that conducted espionage and undercover operations during World War II. 

The Soviet Union had organisations of spies a lot earlier, such as the communist CHEKA (1917-22), the OGPU (1922-34) and Stalin’s NKVD (1934-54). All these organisations used methods to gather information about political dissidents and potential ‘enemies of the state’. After the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, the NKVD was replaced by the KGB ( in english: ‘Committee for National Security’). The KGB assumed responsibility for both domestic security and foreign intelligence. During World War II, Moscow had a lot of interest in infiltrating their best spies on the Manhattan Project, America’s nuclear weapons research program. Soviet agents were able to obtain and pass on technical information about this program, and therefore,when the US dropped their first atomic bomb on Japan in August 1945, Stalin knew more about this devastating new weapon than most American politicians. 

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