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Revisionists, Oil and Cold War Diplomacy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Justus D. Doenecke
Justus D. Doenecke*
Affiliation:
New College, Sarasota, Florida
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Extract

It would indeed be surprising if the recent controversy over revisionist scholarship and the Cold War did not extend to Iran. For the last two decades, most American historians have asserted that United States involvement in Iran was fundamentally a response to Soviet penetration, made manifest during World War II when Russia tried to establish a puppet regime in Azerbaijan. According to the “orthodox” school of Cold War scholarship, America first took an overt interest in Persia in 1946. President Truman sent his “blunt message” to Stalin, the State Department protested sharply, and the United Nations Security Council asked for Russian withdrawal. The Soviets, after boycotting the United Nations discussions, left the territory. America, a disinterested power, had suddenly awaken to her world responsibilities and come to the rescue.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , Winter 1970 , pp. 23 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1970

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References

Notes

1. Such an interpretation is repeated by Professor Richard Cottam in a paper primarily dealing with post-war Iran. In his introductory remarks, Cottam claims that before the year 1954 American diplomacy in Iran was never fundamentally motivated by a concern for oil reserves. He denies that “American oil interests, acting independently or as part of an international trust, were significant in determining either major detail or the general color of American policy in Iran.” He further asserts that even prior to World War II, American involvement in Iran was “slight,” that such diplomats as Arthur Millspaugh--director of a wartime financial mission from the United States to Iran--“left Iranians with a very favorable impression of the United States,” and that efforts to obtain concessions for Standard Oil and Sinclair were “minor,” conspicuously lacking in success. Intense American interest in Iran, notes Cottam, “did not even occur when American forces were present in Iran during World War,” when there was “a general deference to the British, and only became active in 1946. At that time American policy was “overwhelmingly defensive,” involving the removal of Soviet troops from northern Iran and the ousting of the communist Azerbaijan regime by the Iranian army. See Richard Cottam, “The United States, Iran, and the Cold War,” (paper delivered at the Conference on the “Structure of Power in Islamic Iran,” June 26-28, 1969), pp. 3-5.

2. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964.

3. New York: Random House, 1968.

4. For a full description, see De Novo, John A. American Interests and Policies in the Middle East, 1900-1939 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1963.)Google Scholar

5. Cited in Kolko, p. 294.

6. Gardner, p. 227.

7. Kolko, p. 299. According to Kolko, in fact, Millspaugh “was there to open Iranian riches to the United States” and led the American government's effort to direct much of Iranian affairs. Kolko does note that the Iranians, themselves, were “delighted” with continued American protection, then a useful counter-force to Russian and British inroads.

8. Gardner, p. 228. Kolko elaborates Hurley's posture, noting Hurley's fear of British “imperialism, monopoly, and exploitation” and his appeal that Roosevelt work for “liberty and Democracy” in Iran by obtaining important oil concessions, maintaining a mission concerned with domestic life in Iran, and breaking the economic hold of the British. See p. 308.

9. Gardner, p. 229. Gardner further comments, “Apparently without informing either Russia or Great Britain, the United States had moved to obtain an oil concession in Iran. Never before had American interest had a clear shot in this country, but now prospects were especially good.”

10. Kolko, p. 295.

11. Kolko, p. 300

12. Kolko, p. 301. Churchill said to Roosevelt on March 4, 1944, that “My position in this, as in all matters, is that Great Britain seeks no advantage, territorial or otherwise, as result of the war. On the other hand she will not be deprived of anything which rightly belongs to her after having given her best services to the good cause--at least not so long as your humble servant is entrusted with the conduct of affairs.” Ibid.

13. Ibid., p. 302.

14. Ibid., p. 303.

15. Ibid., pp. 303-4.

16. Ibid., p. 229.

17. Gardner, p. 229.

18. Gardner, pp. 229-230.

19. Kolko, p. 310.

20. Ibid., p. 311. One revisionist historian, D. F. Fleming, sees oil as an extremely strong factor in Russian demands. “For decades,” he writes, “the British had been taking great quantities of oil from South Iran. The Russians desired to exploit North Iran, partly because they feared that their own fields might be drained by wells south of the border. It was sometimes said that Russia did not need oil, but this was not true in view of the fuel needs of any large expanding economy and of the recent war damage in her own oil fields. She also naturally desired to share in Middle East oil takings, since the West had fabulous holdings in Iran, Arabia, and Iraq.” See The Cold War and Its Origins, Volume I (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961), p. 340.Google Scholar

21. Ibid., p. 495.

22. Ibid., p. 496. Gardner notes that on February 6, when the Foreign Ministers met, Eden and Stettinius favored a Soviet oil concession for Iran after the withdrawal of foreign troops. See p. 230. Kolko suspects that Churchill's desire to maintain troops did not just concern any threat from Russia “but most probably for fear that the Iranians would deal only with the United States if permitted to do so.” P. 496.

23. Kolko, p. 496.

24. Gardner, p. 231.

25. Smith, Robert Freeman “American Foreign Relations, 1920-1942,” in Bernstein, Barton J. ed., Toward a New Past: Dissenting Essays in American History (New York: Pantheon, 1968), p. 237.Google Scholar