TV REVIEW : The Diamond Expose as Big as the Ritz

Crucially scheduled to air two weeks before Valentine’s Day--and just in time for all those thinking of buying their loved one a precious stone--”Frontline’s” startling report, “The Diamond Empire” (at 9 tonight on KCET-TV Channel 28 and KPBS-TV Channel 15; 8 p.m. on KVCR-TV Channel 24) should be a red flag for the potential diamond consumer.

And for those who’ve already thrown down hard-earned cash for what may be the world’s most overpriced commodity, prepare to get very angry.

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Diamonds, according to the report and seconded by several investigative journalists such as Edward Jay Epstein, are not only not rare, they are common minerals in regions of at least three continents.

They have been marketed as rare, priced as such and controlled by one of history’s most successful monopoly cartels: De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd.

“The Diamond Empire” describes what is essentially the last of the robber-baron operations, buying up competitors, swaying governments, even allegedly using terror tactics to ensure a lock on the diamond industry.

The players here range from the Oppenheimer family of South Africa, which controls De Beers, and Rhodesia founder Cecil Rhodes, to Hitler, Marilyn (“Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend”) Monroe and, above all, a consuming public that has been duped for years to believe that diamonds are so precious that they are worth the cost. One dealer, for example, displays a $90 ring that contains a diamond actually worth $1.

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Epstein suggests that the long-held monopoly, which even extended during the Cold War to the Soviet Union’s huge diamond supply, may be near an end if the U.S. government goes after De Beers the way it went after Panamanian Gen. Manuel Noriega. Like Noriega’s illegal drug business, De Beers could be prosecuted here for violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

Even more ominously for a company so powerful that it can dictate policy in some African regimes, Russia’s need for hard currency could force it to flood the world market with its diamonds. It might kill the cartel, and the marketing myth. That is, if “Frontline” doesn’t do it first.