THE FALL OF THE BRITISH LABOUR GOVERNMENT IN 1951, IN THE MIDST OF THE NATIONALISATION OF THE ANGLO-IRANIAN OIL COMPANY’S CRISIS.
Furthermore, Harriman wanted to reassure the British that Iran would not insist on the application of the Nationalisation Law of 1st May. (On 1st May it became the law. On 2nd May the AIOC was proclaimed nationalised).
On the 26th April, i.e. in considerably less than two months, Dr. Musaddiq, the Chairman of the Oil Commission suddenly called a meeting and expressed his intention of pressing for a decision on the question of nationalisation. The following day the Commission approved the text of a resolution enjoining the implementation of the ‘decision of the Houses of Parliament for oil nationalisation throughout the country’ and setting out in 9 articles the method of implementation. Once again this resolution (the so-called ‘9-point law’) was hustled through the Majlis and it received the approval of both Houses by the 30th April. The Shah promulgated the law on 2nd May.14
When the British Government received sufficient assurances, it sent the Iranian Government, with the agreement of Harriman, a note. This note accepted the basis which was put to Dr. Musaddiq on 24th July by Harriman, as was as explained earlier. It also pointed out that ‘the negotiations could not be conducted in a satisfactory manner unless the present atmosphere was relieved.’15 Furthermore, the British Government as well as the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in the note recognised ‘the principle of the nationalisation of the oil industry in Persia.’16 In reply the government of Iran for their part ‘recognised the need for creating the best possible atmosphere in the interests of success of the negotiations.’17
As a result, an official British mission headed by Richard Stokes, Lord Privy Seal, and Minister of Materials left for Iran on 3rd August 1951. Harriman prepared the way for the Lord Privy Seal’s mission.
Richard Stokes was a wealthy businessman whose family industrial firm, Ransome and Rapier, had extensive and long-standing connections with the Middle East. During the 1930s he had offered to have his company’s rearmament work done at cost price. In the circumstances of post-war England, he was probably one of the few Labour politicians who came within range of the American idea of a ‘millionaire’. Within Labour circles he was regarded as somewhat of an expert on the region.18
Accompanying Stokes were Sir Donald Fergusson, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Fuel and Power, a Treasury official, technical advisor on oil and an official from the Economic Relations Department of the Foreign Office. Shepherd, British Ambassador to Iran, joined the party, which was joined in Teheran by a counsellor at the British Embassy and an expert on Iranian affairs. Five representatives of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company also travelled with them, but did not sit at the conference table.
Richard Stokes, Lord Privy Seal, put forward proposals which were designed to ensure ‘(a) efficient production of the oil, (b) a large off take of oil, and (c) availability of a large quantity of oil to those British interests which have developed it’19, while offering the Iranian nationalisation and the withdrawal of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, as such, from Iran. For (a) it was necessary to maintain the British technical staff and to have a high standard operating organisation, substantially under British control, in which British technical staff could have confidence.
The Iranian Government in a statement announced that the proposals did not conform to the formula on the basis of which negotiations had been begun and refused to discuss these proposals. The government of Iran only wanted to hold talks on:
(a) The purchase of oil to meet the United Kingdom’s own requirements.
(b) Examination of the compensation to be paid to the AIOC.
(C) The employment of British technicians by the NIOC.20
The British Government did not agree with these three points because accepting them meant in effect complying with the terms of the oil nationalisation law of 1st May 1951.
- Ibid.
- Ibid, p. 9.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- W. R. LOUIS, The British Empire in the Middle East: 1945-1951, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 678.
- . PRO, London, CAB 129/47 CP (51) 257, Memorandum by Herbert Morrison on the dispute with Persia, Secret, 26th September 1951, p. 9.
- Ibid.
