page_title: Albert B. Fall
section_title: Teapot Dome scandal
hierarchical_section_title: Albert B. Fall / Career / Teapot Dome scandal
caption_attribution_description: English: Warren Harding's Nomination of Albert Fall to serve as Secretary of the Interior. Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration.
context_page_description: Albert Bacon Fall was a United States Senator from New Mexico and the Secretary of the Interior under President Warren G. Harding, infamous for his involvement in the Teapot Dome scandal. As a captain in the United States Army he supported a military invasion of Mexico in 1916 as a means of ending Pancho Villa's raids.
context_section_description: Fall was appointed to the position of Secretary of the Interior by President Warren G. Harding in March 1921. Soon after his appointment, Harding convinced Edwin Denby, the Secretary of the Navy, that Fall's department should take over responsibility for the Naval Reserves at Elk Hills, California, Buena Vista, California, and Teapot Dome, Wyoming. This last setting became the namesake of the scandal to erupt in April 1922 when The Wall Street Journal reported that Secretary Fall had decided that two of his friends, oilmen Harry F. Sinclair (Mammoth Oil Corporation) and Edward L. Doheny (Pan-American Petroleum and Transport Company), should be given leases to drill in parts of these Naval Reserves without open bidding.
  His acceptance of bribes for the leases resulted in the Teapot Dome scandal. During congressional hearings concerning the scandal in 1924 he explained the concept of oil field drainage with a remark that was later adapted as a line of dialogue in the 2007 film There Will Be Blood:
  Sir, if you have a milkshake and I have a milkshake and my straw reaches across the room, I'll end up drinking your milkshake.
  The investigation found Fall guilty of conspiracy and bribery as a result of $385,000 having been paid to him by Edward L. Doheny. Fall was jailed for one year as a result—the first former cabinet officer sentenced to prison as a result of misconduct in office.
  Doheny was not only acquitted on the charge of bribing Fall, but Doheny's corporation foreclosed on Fall's home in Tularosa Basin, New Mexico, because of "unpaid loans" which turned out to be that same bribe. Harry Sinclair was fined and served six months for contempt of court.
  Albert Fall died on November 30, 1944, after a long illness, in El Paso, Texas. He was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in El Paso.
caption: Albert Fall's Secretary of the Interior nomination
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