Event
Wartime dispute over industrial diamonds
Dispute between the U.S. government and De Beers over industrial diamonds for war work, 1941 to 1943.
- Dates
- 1941–1943
The account is Jennifer Pequignot’s, whose notes rest on books by Edward Jay Epstein, Vicki Howard, Stefan Kanfer and Janine Roberts. No source here links this dispute to the 1945 suit.
Connections 3
involved
- Franklin D. Roosevelt asked De Beers for 6.5 million carats of industrial diamonds Scholarship & press 1
- Ernest Oppenheimer De Beers chairman; argued a U.S. surplus would unsettle the market after the war; agreed to sell one million carats Scholarship & press 1
- De Beers Scholarship & press 1
Timeline 1 date
- 1941–1943 Wartime dispute over industrial diamonds
Proof 1 source
-
Why a Diamond Means Forever: The Creation of the Diamond Engagement Ring Tradition in the United States, 1939-1996, Jennifer Lynn Pequignot, doctoral dissertation, Auburn University (drawing on the N. W. Ayer records at the Smithsonian), 2019.
Scholarship & press
Roosevelt ordered the War Production Board to purchase the necessary 6.5 million carats from De Beers before it was too late.
Oppenheimer eventually agreed to sell the United States one million carats of industrial diamonds, a mere fraction of the original amount requested.
He argued that if the United States had a surplus stockpile of diamonds once the war ended, it could sell these diamonds on the open market, making the international diamond market unstable.
By 1943 the apparent shortage crisis had passed
With each new request De Beers claimed that it did not have enough diamonds readily available to fill the order all at once.
Page history 1 change
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