It left Tapline with crews to lay pipe which wasn't going to arrive any more. It left Tapline in a mess.

There was only one sensible course to follow. The ships were turned back to other world traffic. Much of the American personnel on the Tapline site was flown home. Work was retarded so that it would only keep up with the pipe and other materials already on hand and stockpiled. Altogether a full year was lost before OIT decided to resume licenses for export.

One of the great problems of the whole project was the matter of personnel. From the very first Tapline decided to use as many local people as possible, and that decision has been followed throughout.

For one thing, the American personnel, like the American machinery and materials, had to be flown or sent by ship half-way round the world. There was no other course to follow for materials and machines, but there was a vast pool of Arab personnel to draw from more or less on the spot.

The line was to be laid right through the heart of the Moslem world, which long had been closed to non-Moslems, and it seemed only just that the Arabs themselves should play as large a role as possible in the project that was to change their manner of life in so many ways.

Machines and materials had to be shipped over 9,000 miles