In North Texas e-News (July 26, 2020), Arkansas State Parks’ article headlined the finding of unusually large diamonds by visiting tourists. The recent excellent article on diamonds by Austin College’s Professor Emeritus, Jerry Lincecum in the May 4 issue combined with PBS Frontline’s The Diamond Empire (1994) join in explaining why diamonds are not forever; nor are they “a girl’s best friend.”

The Frontline video explains how South Africa’s diamond corporation, Anglo-American DeBeers tried to monopolize the diamond industry by securing secret deals with any other nations that were in competition: Australia, the then USSR, and the USA were the biggest potential competitors. The US Department of Justice subpoenaed Anglo-American DeBeers under the Sherman Anti-trust Act, Section One (anti-monopoly). Speaker of the House, Sam Rayburn,** was at this meeting in J.P. Morgan’s office.

 

In a meeting about the potentially rich diamond fields in Arkansas, where Bill Clinton* was then governor, an understanding was made that the US would not allow competition from Arkansas’ diamonds; but tourists could look for diamonds as recreation (as noted in the Netnews article of July 26).

Frontline’s report covers the history of economic, political, and military aspects of this not-so-rare stone that became more valuable thanks to expert cutters and professional advertisers. Frontline notes that Germany’s invasion of Belgium in 1940 was Hitler’s highest priority because Germany needed industrial diamonds for their war machines from a major source—the Belgian Congo.***

After the USSR became Russia in 1991, and apartheid legally ended in South Africa in 1994, a legal settlement between South Africa and the US Department of Justice was made in January, 2005. DeBeers now has a large headquarters building in Manhattan. One stage in this dramatic diamond saga includes General Electric’s development of an inexpensive “synthetic” diamond that was indistinguishable from a “real” one. This secret was exposed by a whistleblower who was subsequently fired. He sued GE!

Some lessons here are that understanding wars, elections, and other significant events depends on what we perceive to be true. Advertisers and politicians are professionally skilled in manipulating our perceptions. Jonathan Swift, in his Gulliver’s Travels comments that “…primitive people are obsessed with pretty stones…that they find by digging in the mud.” But there are many civilized citizens whose hobby is polishing rocks, and a whole science called petrology which studies the origin, composition and classification of rocks!

*Hillary Rodham’s engagement ring hosts an Arkansas diamond.

**He represented Texas’ 4^th Congressional District and lived in Bonham.

***Botswana, Namibia, and Angola also are/were rich in diamonds.