Meanwhile, the twentieth anniversary of OPEC was close at hand. Over two decades, the organization had risen from a nonentity to a colossus in the world economy, and a grand celebration was being planned for an OPEC summit in November. In anticipation, a special committee had been working on a long-term strategy. An official history was commissioned, as was a film, and fifteen hundred journalists were to be invited to the great event, which would be held in Baghdad, where OPEC had been founded in 1960. On the morning of September 22, 1980, the oil, finance, and foreign ministers of the OPEC
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