UK’s Secret Cold War Plan For Middle East Oil Fields
The 1950s were a turbulent time on both sides of the Iron Curtain. With the Second World War over and the star role played by crude oil in its outcome, British and U.S. intelligence agencies wasted no time working out scenarios should the Soviets invade the Middle East.
In hindsight, especially to younger generations, this might seem eccentric, but not to those who remember the Cold War and the paranoia that raged on both sides. In the 50s, the British and U.S. intelligence services were genuinely concerned about a further Soviet expansion, into the Middle East, which at the time was the main source of crude oil for both countries. No wonder the region was a priority security issue for both countries.
The plans were first hatched by U.S. President Truman in 1949, Russian Sputnik writes, citing a number of recently declassified documents from both the UK and the United States. Dubbed “oil denial”, the plans involved oil company personnel in the Middle East sabotaging their own oilfields and refineries in case of a Soviet invasion, in hopes of restricting the invaders’ access to the precious commodity.
While sound in themselves, the denial plans of the Brits faced problems: the empire’s influence in the Middle East was in decline. Iran’s and Iraq’s governments, according to declassified documents, were believed to be particularly unlikely to cooperate with oil companies in sabotaging their own oil industry.
The reason for this was that the UK no longer had a monopolistic presence in these two, despite the U.S.-led 1953 coup in Iran, which returned the shah to power and BP to the helm of the Iranian oil industry. BP was at the helm, true, but the Iranian government controlled the refineries, and was building more. The Soviet invasion scenario involved not just oilfields but also refineries.
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