The year 1983 began—and—ended with an unusual oil crisis: fears that the price of crude would go not up but down. OPEC looked as if it might split apart, and as the crisis deepened, it showed how oil had seeped into every corner of the world economy. Currencies moved up and down with each day’ s oil news, and bankers became aware of how much their loans to oil countries depended on keeping up the price. When OPEC patched up its quarrels and agreed to limit production, nobody was quite sure what was keeping up the price. What was clear was that many countries and institutions, from Britain to Mexico, from Citibank to Exxon, had virtually become unofficial members of OPEC,trying hard to keep the price steady.

But as the oil drama played on, it began to be eclipsed by the wider problem of country debt. The near collapse of Mexico in mid l982 had been precipitated by the falling oil price, but the crisis of credit that followed affected all Latin American countries as high interest rates and the high dollar made their repayments still more expensive. The debt crisis spread beyond Latin America into Asia and Africa. The balance of fear between countries and banks, locked in a situation in which each side could ruin the other, was beginning to seem like the commercial equivalent of the nuclear balance of terror. It also gave a new dimension to the old North-South divide:would the South find that their debts would force the North to take real notice of their problems?