With the exception of Watergate, there has never been a scandal more egregious and with wider implications than the Teapot Dome affair during the presidency of Warren G. Harding. It involved the secret leasing to private companies of oil-containing tracts owned by the Navy, mainly in Wyoming and California.
“Domes” are natural reservoirs of crude oil. The “Teapot Dome” – named after a rock resembling the kitchen implement – was near Casper, Wyoming. It was “reserved” in 1920 for the future energy needs of American Navy vessels.
Senator Albert B. Fall of New Mexico – Harding’s secretary of the Interior – opposed this “conservation” policy. Hence his furtive attempt – in collusion with Secretary of the Navy, Edward Denby and others – to lease the domes to private extractors. Teapot Dome was leased to Harry F. Sinclair’s Mammoth Oil Company. The Elk Hills reserve in California was rented to Edward L. Doheny’s Pan-American Petroleum and Transport Company. The two gave Fall and others gifts and “loans” amounting to $400,000 – an enormous fortune at...
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