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‘What reason commands, the heart approves’: The Special Relationship of 1950

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Anglo-American Relations and Cold War Oil

Part of the book series: Cold War History Series ((CWH))

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Abstract

Examination of Anglo-American relations in 1950 at the global, regional Middle Eastern and specific Iranian levels reveals that the Special Relationship had survived, despite inauspicious prospects in the immediate aftermath of World War II. This did not necessarily mean harmonious relations. Beneath broad anti-communist cooperation lurked different national interests that sometimes inspired acute Anglo-American tension. Anglo-American relations in the Middle East generally, and in Iran specifically, were indicative of this ‘competitive cooperation’. Here Britain sought desperately to defend its traditional ascendancy against its own economic weakness, rising nationalism and US expansionism, which was pursued in the cause of anti-communism but which also uncannily complemented American economic interests. And few issues in the region were more traumatic than control over oil resources, which the Iranian crisis was to demonstrate repeatedly.

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Notes and References

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  35. Text is in G. Kennan, Memoirs 1925–50 (London: Hutchinson, 1968), Appendix C, pp.547-59.

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  38. Franks (Washington) to Bevin, 8 Mar. 1950, in Bullen and Pelley (eds), Documents on British Policy Overseas, Doc.5, p. 17.

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  50. Britain’s oil industry was used to ameliorate its postwar deficit. British determination to draw as much of its consumption requirements as it wanted from production within its own territories contributed heavily to the failure of wartime Anglo-American efforts to devise a joint oil policy. HST, R.K. Davies Papers, box 13, folder 2, Anglo-American Oil Treaty 1945–47, Summary of the Minutes of the Joint Subcommittee, 26 Jul.-l Aug., 1944.

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  110. Watt similarly argues that NSC-68’s military implications ‘reinforced the necessity of Britain to America’. Watt, Succeeding John Bull, p.118.

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  111. 8 per cent compared to 6.7 per cent.

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© 2003 Steve Marsh

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Marsh, S. (2003). ‘What reason commands, the heart approves’: The Special Relationship of 1950. In: Anglo-American Relations and Cold War Oil. Cold War History Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230287655_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230287655_2

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  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-42839-7

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