British Diplomatic Oil Crisis: Contemporary Anglo-Saxon Geopolitical Rivalries in the Persian Gulf: Drawing a Lesson? Or Sir Anthony Eden‘s Delusion of Grandeur.

be
entirely free from the effect of British income tax, and that the
total annual payments in respect of dividend and allocation to
General Reserve should be a minimum of £4,000,000.
16

This on legal advice was
presented as a Supplement Agreement so as
not to call in question the validity of the existing 1933 Agreement.
The Company’s representative and the Iranian Minister of Finance
signed the Supplemental Agreement on 17th July 1949.

The Supplemental Agreement
was submitted for ratification by the
Majlis. This had not been achieved by 30th July 1949, when the
Majlis session ended, and the devaluation of sterling in September
of that year did nothing for the standing of Britain.

When a new Majlis was
elected in September 1949, the Ministry of
Finance urged upon the Company the necessity for revising the
Agreement so as to make it more acceptable to the new Majlis. The
Company replied that the Supplemental Oil Agreement was the result
of long and difficult negotiations and they could not hold out any
hope of amending it, and they pointed out that, in any case, the
Majlis had not yet reached any decision on it.17

Two
Iranian Prime Ministers hesitated to commend the Supplemental
Agreement to the Majlis.

When Mansur became Prime
Minister early in 1950, the Shah instructed
him to get the Supplemental Agreement through the Majlis, but he was
uncertain how to do so and, in the event,