[7] He joined the Foreign Service in 1954 and worked in Italy, France, Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait and Baghdad before being appointed to the State Department's top energy post in 1968.

In an influential article in the journal Foreign Affairs in April 1973, Akins correctly predicted that world oil consumption for the next 12 years would exceed that of all previous human history, and warned that the loss of production from any two Middle Eastern countries would push prices from $3 a barrel to more than $5.

Akins was promoted from director of fuels and energy at the U.S. State Department to U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia in September, 1973, one month before the 1973 Oil Crisis began.

One of his first acts as ambassador was to send a confidential message to oil executives who were forming the Aramco consortium in Saudi Arabia "to use their contacts at the highest levels" of the U.S. government to "hammer home the point that oil restrictions are not going to be lifted unless political struggle is settled in a manner satisfactory to Arabs",[citation needed] advocating at least some measure of support for Arab claims against Israel, something he would often do later in life as an industry consultant, and was often criticized for.[who?]

Akins also infuriated the Secretary of State when he protested Kissinger's successful request for Saudi officials to grant entry to New York Times columnist C.L.

Akins claimed to first find out about his firing from a friend who called to read him a newspaper article reporting it, saying "I presume that I have stepped on a few toes" in an interview with The New York Times.

[10] This commission investigated the details of the controversial 1967 USS Liberty incident and determined, among other things, that the state of Israel had deliberately attacked an American ship in international waters, killing 34 U.S. sailors in the process and perpetrating an act of war.