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

Government
of 1945-51 formulated a policy of assistance to the
developing countries. That was the Colombo Plan of 1950, which was
described in Chapter Two. In 1951, when the Tories were questioned
during the general election campaign,

on the action that a
Conservative government would have taken, both
Churchill and Eden were evasive. ‘If a strong Conservative
government had been in power the Persian crisis would never had
arisen in the way it did,’ said Churchill. ‘No intelligent
government,’ added Eden by way of amplification, ‘would have got
into the position in which this government got itself.’
13

On 27th
June 1951, Churchill had said to Attlee that he ‘never
thought that the Persian oil fields could be held by force.’
14

On 25th October 1951, the
Conservative Party took office, with, once
again, Winston Churchill as prime Minister. From the outset
Churchill was critical of the United States Government’s attitude
towards the British handling of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company’s
crisis.

The United States
Government always had mixed emotions about getting
involved in the confrontation between Britain and Iran. ‘First of
all there was America’s traditional hatred of imperialism, and in
particular of British imperialism, and in particular of British
imperialism, and her readiness to sympathise with the rights and
aspirations of small nations.’ 15 President
Truman, and his Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, expressed concern
about Britain’s stand on the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company issue. They
viewed it as uncompromising.