BP - British Petroleum Anglo-Iranian Oil Crisis CIA - British Government Files - Download

BP - British Petroleum Anglo-Iranian Oil Crisis CIA - British Government Files 

4,290 pages of CIA, British Government, and State Department files covering the interest of the once British Government controlled enterprise subsequently known as BP (British Petroleum). In 1908 BP, British Petroleum, was founded as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. 

The files chiefly cover the British-Iranian (AIOC/BP) oil dispute of the 1940's and 50's, and the United States’ involvement in its settlement and regime change in Iran. 

 

Contents
Section 1 - CIA Files
Section 2 - British Government Files
Section 3 - U.S. Department of States Files
Section 4 - NSC Report
Section 5 - Foreign Relations of the United States, Iran, 1951–1954
Section 6 - Department of Defense Academic Studies


BP - British Petroleum - Anglo-Persian Oil Company History

In May 1901, British businessman William Knox D'Arcy entered into an agreement with the Shah of Iran for the exploration of oil. The 1901 concession for the exploration of oil resources in South Persia was entered into between the Persian Government and Mr. D'Arcy on the 28th of May 1901. It included the provision of the exclusive right for 60 years for the exploration of petroleum throughout the Persian Empire, with the exception of five provinces in Northern Persia. The Persian Government was to receive £20,000 in cash, £20,000 in paid upshares, and annually a sum equal to sixteen percent of the Company's profits.

D’Arcy placed his entire fortune into the search for oil, but after almost seven years, there was no sign of commercial exploitable petroleum. The venture and D’Arcy’s money was nearing an end. A telegram was sent to the chief geologist, George Bernard Reynolds, to shut down operations. Reynolds delayed following the orders due to a strong "rotten egg" smell that engulfed the drilling camp. A few days later, oil was shooting high into the Iranian sky. Oil was discovered by D’Arcy’s venture on May 26, 1908. According to the official BP/British Petroleum history, upon hearing the news D’Arcy said, "If this is true, all our troubles are over."

In 1908, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (Later the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, then British Petroleum) was created with its main asset, D'Arcy's oil rights. In 1914, APOC had accumulated large oil reserves, greater than demand at the time. Other oil companies had the lock on the industrial petroleum market. The automobile age oil thirst had not yet appeared. The lack of revenue drove the company close to bankruptcy. 

Winston Churchill, who was First Lord of the Admiralty at the time, believed that the British Navy should switch from being powered by coal to oil. Churchill sensed coming years of war. He appealed to Parliament that Britain should secure a protected supply of oil. In 1914, the British government subscribed to the Company a total of £2,200,000, becoming the majority shareholder with 56% of the Company's shares. 

In 1917, APOC bought the German motor oil company named British Petroleum. In 1935, the Company was renamed Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, after Persia changed its name to Iran.

Iranian leaders over the years sought to modify the terms of the APOC/AIOC oil concession, which many in Iran saw as exploitative. A 1933 re-negotiated concession was later found to be unsatisfactory to the Persian government. After years of negotiations, the opposing sides were not able to reach an agreement.

In March of 1951, the Iranian government, elected by the Iranian parliament, of nationalist Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh (also spelled Mosaddegh, Mosaddeq, Mossadeq, or Musaddiq), nationalized the British owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The AIOC at the time was providing 90 percent of the petroleum used in Europe. Mossadeq transformed the AIOC operations in Iran into the National Iranian Oil Company.

The January 7, 1952, issue of Time Magazine named Mossadeq as Man of the Year for 1951.

The British government was infuriated by the takeover of its oil company. The British government was able to organize a successful boycott of Iranian oil. Both nations were thus denied revenue from the abundant Iranian oil supply. The U.S. Secretary of State at the time, Dean Acheson, 17 years later wrote in his book, "Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department," that "Never had so few, lost so much, so stupidly and so fast."

In October 1951, British elections lead to the Conservative Party taking power, returning Winston Churchill to the position of Prime Minister. After the earlier loss of the India colony, Churchill was committed to not seeing any more dissembling of the Empire. 

BP/British Petroleum’s current official history completely omits the years 1952 and 1953.

The British government began seeking ways, including military action, to end the rule of the Mossadegh government. When Mossadegh learned of the British intentions he shut down the British Embassy and deported British citizens from Iran. The British government turned to U.S. President Harry Truman. Truman was against military intervention or giving support to a coup. It has been reported that Truman told the British government that the CIA had never overthrown a government and that he did not want to establish such a precedent.

After President Eisenhower took office in 1953, the British government conveyed its concern that control of Iran could fall into communist hands. The United States and Britain feared the links Mossadegh had to the Iranian communist Tudeh Party. In August 1953, the United States and Britain began planning a coup to remove Mossadeq from power.

The CIA operation in Iran was codenamed TPAJAX. The plan was coordinated by the CIA's Special Activities Division political action officer in Iran, Kermit Roosevelt, the grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt. The covert action combined propaganda dissimilation encouraged acts of provocation, demonstrations, bribery, employed agents of influence, "false flag" operatives, dissident military leaders, and paid protestors. The goal was to lapse Iran into chaos.

On August 16, 1953, The Shah sent Iranian Imperial Guard Colonel Nematollah Nassiri to arrest Mosaddegh. Instead, Nassiri was arrested by forces loyal to Mosaddegh. The next day, the Shah left the country, taking refuge in Rome. On August 19, the CIA arranged for a mob to march on Mossadegh's home. Pro-Shah Iranian army forces arrested Mossadeq. The senior army general chosen by the CIA to lead the coup, Fazlollah Zahedi, gave a broadcast to the nation declaring that he was the lawful prime minister by the order of the Shah. The Shah soon after returned to Iran.

Mossadegh was tried by a military tribunal for treason. He was convicted and sentenced to three years of solitary confinement, followed by life confined to his home village, where he remained until his death in 1967. A number of Mossadegh's supporters were taken into custody, imprisoned and tortured. Mossadegh's closest associate, Minster of Foreign Affairs Hossein Fatemi, was executed on October 29, 1953, by order of the Shah's military court. Dozens of military officers and student leaders were executed by military tribunals. After the Shah returned to Iran, to remain in control, he governed in an increasingly authoritarian manner. 

Mossadegh's National Iranian Oil Company became an international consortium, and AIOC resumed operations in Iran as one of its members.

The AIOC renamed itself the British Petroleum Company in 1954. After Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister, she endorsed privatizing many British government owned assets. In several stages from 1979 to 1987, the British government sold all the shares of British Petroleum it owned.  In 1998, British Petroleum merged with Amoco, formerly the Standard Oil of Indiana, becoming BP Amoco plc. In 2000, BP Amoco acquired Arco (Atlantic Richfield Co.) and Burmah Castrol plc. In 2001, the company formally renamed itself as BP plc.


Contents
Section 1 - CIA Files
Section 2 - British Government Files
Section 3 - U.S. Department of States Files
Section 4 - NSC Report
Section 5 - Foreign Relations of the United States, Iran, 1951–1954
Section 6 - Department of Defense Academic Studies

 
CIA FILES

611 pages of CIA files. The files mostly date from 1947 to 1954. According to CIA staff historian Nick Cullather, who worked in the Agency during 1992 and 1993, files dealing with on the ground covert action of Operation TPAJAX were destroyed or lost by the Agency. The files presented in this research set are comprised of National Intelligence Estimates, reports from the Office of Reports and Estimates, and Special Estimates.

Also included among the CIA files is a once Top-Secret draft history written by the Central Intelligence Agency's history staff in 1998. The agency still considers 88 pages of the 139-page report to be too sensitive to release, even 57 years after the events the report covers. The report titled "Zendebad, Shah! The Central Intelligence Agency and the Fall of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq, August 1953," was released in a redacted form after a lawsuit was filed for materials relating to Iran in 1953. At first it was denied in its entirety, then upon review, sections already marked Unclassified were released along with a single section previously marked Secret. The document is potentially of great historical value because it was prepared by a trained CIA historian, with the benefit of access to still classified supporting documentation and many years of historical perspective. Also included in this is a copy of this report, with much fewer redactions, released in 2019.

Released at the same time in 2019 is a copy of the report, “The Battle for Iran,” produced in 1954. Abstract:  This account of the role of the Central Intelligence Agency in the political action operation that altered the course of history in Iran was written with the enthusiastic cooperation of the Near East Division, Directorate of Operations. It is based on files remaining in the Division (although the great bulk of the correspondence and traffic dealing with the operation was destroyed in I962), on the draft history written in 1954by Dr. Donald N. Hilber, on personal interviews with a number of active and retired Agency officers who participated in the action, on Central Reference Service Personality Files, and on a variety of open sources. Unless otherwise noted, major documentary sources were NE Division files.

The set includes a text transcription of a book review from the CIA's internal journal "Studies in Intelligence." This 2004 article is a review of "All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror Intelligence in Recent Public Literature" by Stephen Kinzer. The review was written by CIA staff historian David S. Robarge.


BRITISH GOVERNMENT FILES

973 pages of British Prime Minister's Cabinet Papers. Files mostly date from 1946 to 1954, covering the Anglo-Iranian oil crisis. Composed of papers kept by the Cabinet Office including ministers' memorandums, cabinet conclusions, and cabinet meeting notes.

The Cabinet Office provides the secretariat for the Cabinet and its committees. The papers include minutes called "conclusions." Conclusions document opinions and ideas discussed at cabinet meetings. Memoranda is kept by the Cabinet Office and are used for policy issues dealing with specific events. The memorandums usually include an outline of the issue, its background and significance, possible solutions, and a precise recommendation for action.


UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE FILES

50 pages of State Department files dating from 1951 to 1953. Highlights include:

A memo from Secretary of State Dean Acheson on the information that should be dissimilated to the Iranian people as part of its "psychological strategy program."

A report on the initial findings of a working group consisting of representatives from the State Department, Department of Defense, the CIA, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff on plans for "the specific military, economic, diplomatic, and psychological measures which should be taken to support a non-communist Iranian Government or to prevent all or part of Iran or adjacent areas from falling under communist domination."

A memo by Secretary of State John Dulles mentioning that it is sometimes possible for the Department to inspire editorials in U.S. media. Dulles writes this would be useful in case, "Embassy should desire certain points of view brought out for benefit American public or particular emphasis laid upon points which have not received full understanding and publicity. Additionally, VOA (Voice of America) might, pick up such editorials or articles and play them, on Persian program without any indication U.S. official inspiration."


NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL (NSC) REPORT

A 1952 eight-page report from the National Security Council titled, "A Report to the National Security Council by the Executive Secretary on United States Policy Regarding the Present Situation in Iran.”

 
FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, IRAN, 1951–1954 

1,549 pages of 375 documents and an index of Department of State transcriptions of historical records of United States diplomatic activity surrounding the oil dispute between the United Kingdom and Iran following the latter’s decision to nationalize the assets of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) in March 1951.

Documents cover the role of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the formulation of U.S. policy toward Iran or documentation on the covert action that led to the overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq on August 19, 1953.

The documents are presented chronologically according to Washington time. Memoranda of conversations are placed according to the time and date of the conversation, rather than the date the memorandum was drafted.

The sections include:

United States Efforts to Understand Mosadeq, February 1951–February 1952

The July 1952 Iranian Political Crisis and Its Aftermath, March 1952–February 1953

Planning and Implementation of Operation TPAJAX, March–August 1953

The Aftermath of Operation TPAJAX, September 1953–December 1954

 
Department of Defense Academic Studies

1,099 pages of monographs, research reports, and academic studies in 10 reports including:

Operation Ajax - A Case Study on Analyst-Policy Maker Tensions and the Challenges of Estimative Intelligence (2015)

Abstract: This monograph analyzes Operation Ajax as a historical case study of the inherent challenges of estimative intelligence and analyst-policymaker tensions. In 1953, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) led a coup that overthrew Iran's elected prime minister, Dr. Mohammed Mosaddeq. The coup, titled Operation Ajax, coincided with the early Cold War years and the development of the nascent interagency intelligence community. Historians frequently study Operation Ajax as an example of the U.S. government's early attempts to employ covert action as a foreign policy tool. A less studied aspect of the coup is the intelligence estimates that informed and influenced the Truman and Eisenhower administrations' policy decisions during the Anglo-Iranian Oil Crisis. 

 
Prime Minister Mossadegh and Ayatullah Kashani from Unity to Enmity as Viewed from the American Embassy in Tehran, June 1950-August 1953 (1991)

Abstract: This report studies the strains inherent to Iranian secular-religious union as highlighted in the early 1950s by the political relationship between the two top leaders of Iran, Dr Mossadegh and Ayatullah Kashani. The narrative of their relationship begins in June 1950 with their initial unity of purpose, a nationalist, anti-imperialist alliance which overwhelmed all other political forces to take control of the government and British oil concessions in Iran. Western resistance to their government ensued and internal opposition slowly increased. The story continues through stages of economic and political deterioration until Kashani turned on his partner and assisted U.S., British, and the Shah's covert operators in ousting Prime Minister Mossadegh in 1953.

 
Other studies include:

Iran and the Persian Gulf (1971)

The Ascendance of Iran A Study of the Emergence of an Assertive Iranian Foreign Policy and Its Impact on Iranian-Soviet Relations (1979)

Iran and the Big Powers, 1900-1953 (1985)

Iran and Iraq Perspectives In Conflict (1998)

The Roots of Iranian Foreign Policy (1999)

The British Experience in Iraq from 1914-1926 - What Wisdom Can the United States Draw from Its Experience (2004)

The Iranian Refining Crisis - The Argument for Strategic Patience in Relations With the Islamic Republic of Iran (2008)

From Alliance to Adversaries - The Influence of the 1946 Iranian Crisis on Early US Cold War Strategies (2020)