Abstract
How right Mr Evans was. The Anglo-Iranian oil crisis was a bubbling cauldron of issues that simultaneously united and divided policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic and that stretched the Anglo-American relationship to its limit — and sometimes beyond. Communist containment, access to oil reserves, the activities of multinational companies, the sanctity of contract, international law, national prestige, covert operations, Iranian independence, and indigenous Middle Eastern politics: this was the minefield through which American and British policymakers had carefully to step as they formulated their policies.
… the Persian question is a test of Anglo-American relations — a test of that Anglo-American amity, collaboration and solidarity which is of such importance to world peace and prosperity.1 (S.N. Evans, Member of Parliament for Wednesbury, June 1951)
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Notes and References
Parliamentary Debates (Hansard), House of Commons, 5th series, 489, Comprising Period from 18th June-6th July, 1951. 21 Jun. 1951, c.766. At this time the British referred to Iran as Persia, but this practice is used throughout the book only in quotation.
Much has been written about Anglo-American relations and the Special Relationship. For an introduction see, amongst others: H.C. Allen, Great Britain and the United States: A History of Anglo-American Relations (1783-1952) (London: Odhams Press, 1954); C.J. Bartlett, The Special Relationship: A Political History of Anglo-American Relations Since 1945 (London: Longman, 1992); J. Baylis, Anglo-American Defence Relations, 1939–84: The Special Relationship (London: Macmillan, 1984); J. Baylis (ed.), Anglo-American Relations Since 1939: The Enduring Alliance (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997); C. Bell, The Debatable Alliance: An Essay in Anglo-American Relations (London: Oxford University Press, 1964); A. Danchev, On Specialness: Essays in Anglo-American Relations (Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan, 1998); J. Dickie, ‘Special’ No More. Anglo-American Relations: Rhetoric and Reality (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1994); D. Dimbleby and D. Reynolds, An Ocean Apart: The Relationship Between Britain and America in the Twentieth Century (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1988); A.P. Dobson, The Politics of the Anglo-American Economic Special Relationship (Brighton and New York: Wheatsheaf Books, 1988); A.P. Dobson, Anglo-American Relations in the Twentieth Century: Of Priendship, Conflict and the Rise and Decline of Superpowers (London and New York: Routledge, 1995); J. Dumbrell, A Special Relationship: Anglo-American Relations in the Cold War and After (Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2001); R. Edmonds, Setting the Mould: The United States and Britain 1945–50 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986); L.H. Gelb, Anglo-American Relations, 1945–49: Toward a Theory of Alliances (New York: Garland Publishers, 1988); R.M. Hathaway, Ambiguous Partnership: Britain and America, 1941–47 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981); W.E. Leuchtenburg et ah, Britain and the United States: Four Views to Mark the Silver Jubilee (London: Heinemann, 1979); W.R. Louis and H. Bull (eds), The Special Relationship: Anglo-American Relations Since 1945 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986); R.B. Manderson-Jones, The Special Relationship: Anglo-American Relations and the Western European Unity 1947–56 (London: London School of Economics and Political Science, 1972); H.G. Nicholas, Britain and the United States (Chicago: University Press Chicago, 1975); D.C. Watt, Succeeding John Bull: America in Britain’s Place (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); R.B. Woods, A Changing of the Guard: Anglo-American Relations 1941–46 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990).
Material has been written on a number of other aspects of the oil dispute. For legal aspects see A.W. Ford, The Anglo-Iranian Dispute of1951-52: A Study of the Role of Law in the Relations of States (Berkeley: University of California, 1954). for covert operations see CM. Woodhouse, Something Ventured (London: Granada, 1982); K. Roosevelt, Countercoup: The Struggle for the Control of Iran (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979); M. Ruehsen, ‘Operation “Ajax’ Revisited: Iran, 1953’, Middle Eastern Studies (1993), vol. 29, pp.467-86. For the impact on Iran see H. Kathouzian, Musaddiq and the Struggle for Power in Iran (London: Tauris, 1990); J.A. Bill and W.R. Louis (eds), Musaddiq, Iranian Nationalism and Oil (London: Tauris, 1988); M. Elm, Oil, Power, and Principle: Iran’s Oil Nationalization and its Aftermath (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1992); N. Keddie, Roots of Revolution: An Interpretive History of Modern Iran (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1981). For American and British foreign policies see J.A. Bill, The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1988); B. Rubin, Paved with Good Intentions: The American Experience in Iran (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981); W.R. Louis, The British Empire in the Middle East, 1945–1951: Arab Nationalism, the United States and Postwar Imperialism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984); M.H. Lytle, The Origins of the Iranian-American Alliance 1941–53 (New York: Holmes and Maier, 1987). And for the oil perspective see J. Bamberg, The History of the British Petroleum Company. Vol.2. The Anglo-Iranian Years (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); R. Engler, The Politics of Oil: A Study of Private Power and Democratic Direction (New York: Macmillan, 1961); S.H. Longrigg, Oil in the Middle East: Its Discovery and Development, 3rd edn (London: Oxford University Press, 1968); H. Longhurst, Adventure in Oil: The Story of British Petroleum (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1959); F. Fesharaki, Development of the Iranian Oil Industry: International and Domestic Aspects (New York: Praeger, 1976); G.W. Stocking, Middle East Oil: A Study in Political and Economic Controversy (London: Allen Lane, 1971).
L.P. Elwell Sutton, Persian Oil: A Study in Power Politics (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1955); M.A. Heiss, The United States, Great Britain, and Iranian Oil, 1950–54 (Thesis (PhD), Ohio State University, 1991); M. Heiss, Empire and Nationhood: The United States, Great Britain, and Iranian Oil, 1950–54 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).
D. Wilber, Secret History, www.cryptome.org/cia-iran-all.htm.
Edmonds likewise sees the crisis as carrying’ some important pointers towards the Anglo-American disaster of 1956’. Edmonds, Setting the Mould, p.235.
This term is adopted from Gavin, who uses it as a convenient characterisation of expected behaviour and cites, as a prime example of the framework, J.L. Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982). F.J. Gavin, ‘Politics, Power, and U.S. Policy in Iran, 1950–53,’ Journal of Cold War Studies (1999), vol. 1, p.56.
Horowitz, whose own views have been challenged rigorously, has claimed that ‘Anglo-American differences were merely tactical’, and of British exploitation of Iranian oil Roberts and Wilson have declared ‘There is no fundamental conflict of interest here between Britain and America. Both are agreed in desiring to halt Soviet expansionism; both are agreed in desiring to see the British economy independent of American aid; both are agreed in desiring to improve economic conditions in Iran so as to render the country less vulnerable to Soviet pressure.’ D. Horowitz, The Free World Colossus: A Critique of American Foreign Policy in the Cold War (New York: Hill and Wang, 1971), p.184; H. Roberts and P. Wilson, Britain and the United States: Problems in Co-operation (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1953), p.193.
For example, A.P. Dobson, ‘Informally Special?: The Churchill-Truman Talks of January 1952 and the State of Anglo-American Relations’, Review of International Studies (1997), vol. 23, pp.24-47.
S. Hodgshon, Tensions Between Britain and the United States in the Middle East with Special Reference to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Crisis, 1951–54 (Thesis (PhD), University of Sussex, 1977), p.64.
C.R. Attlee, ‘Britain and America: Common Aims Different Views’, Foreign Affairs (1953-54), vol. 32, p.202.
G.W. Ball, ‘The “Special Relationship’ in Today’s World’, in Leuchtenburg et al., Four Views, p.57.
Ibid., p.51.
H. Gaitskell, ‘The Search for Anglo-American Policy’, Foreign Affairs (1953-54), vol. 32, p.574.
Watt, Succeeding John Bull.
D. Owen, ‘Britain and the United States’, in W.E. Leuchtenburg et ah, Four Views, p.63.
For extended discussion of the period from the coup to the conclusion of the oil settlement see M.A. Heiss, ‘United States, Great Britain, and the Creation of the Iranian Oil Consortium, 1953–54’, International History Review (1994), vol. 16, pp.511-35; Bamberg, History of BP, pp.507-9; Elm, Oil, Power and Principle, chap.21; and L.P. Elwell Sutton, Persian Oil, chap.22.
Authors are always vulnerable to methodological criticism. Two poignant examples are provided by the receptions given to James Bill’s Eagle and the Lion and Daniel Yergin’s The Prize. Should a narrow approach be adopted, then the author is often taken to task for not considering this or that factor. James Bill sought to explain the ultimate breakdown of Iranian-American relations, but he took a ‘narrow’ approach by concentrating on Iran’s internal circumstances and was criticised for losing sight of the larger regional and international contexts. Conversely, Yergin adopted a ‘broad’ approach to providing an overview of the importance of oil and was criticised for failing to provide an integrated analysis of its significance in establishing and maintaining American pre-eminence in the postwar international system. Bill, The Eagle; D. Yergin, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991); M. Lytle, ‘Tragedy or Farce? America’s Troubled Relations with Iran’, Diplomatic History (1990), vol. 14, pp.461-9; D.S. Painter, ‘Oil and World Power’, Diplomatic History (1993), vol. 17, pp.159-70.
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© 2003 Steve Marsh
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Marsh, S. (2003). Introduction. In: Anglo-American Relations and Cold War Oil. Cold War History Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230287655_1
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