the british withdrawal

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The British Withdrawal from the Gulf, 1967-71Wm. Roger Louis

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To cite this article: Wm. Roger Louis (2003): The British Withdrawal from the Gulf, 1967-71, The Journal of Imperial andCommonwealth History, 31:1, 83-108

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The British Withdrawal from the Gulf,1967–71

WM. ROGER LOUIS

When the news broke on 16 January 1968 that Britain would withdraw allforces East of Suez by the end of 1971, the public responded with anawareness of the historic significance of the event. ‘It is comparable inimportance’, according to the New Statesman, ‘to Mr Attlee’s granting ofIndian independence and the Tory government’s evacuation of BritishAfrica.’1 Critics quickly pointed out that the recall of troops from the Gulfseemed to be an afterthought to the closing down of the great base atSingapore, and that the cost of maintaining British forces in the Gulf, some£12 million yearly, was negligible in comparison to the immense revenuesin oil. The Gulf states met nearly half of Britain’s energy requirements.There was another vein of criticism, to some the most damning, that wasexpressed incisively by Iain Macleod, the former Colonial Secretary whohad accelerated the pace of British decolonisation in Africa. In the early1960s, ironically enough, he had faced similar dilemmas with the promisesgiven to the white settlers in Kenya and the Rhodesias. He had beenaccused of treachery. Macleod now declared that the breaking of pledges tothe rulers in the Gulf would be ‘shameful and criminal’.2 Whatever theirony, Macleod expressed the ethical predicament in abandoning the Gulf.The dilemma seemed all the more acute because the Gulf represented, inthe words of one of the proconsuls, the ‘last province of the PaxBritannica’.3

Economic stringency had forced the decision, but in another sense theretreat seemed to be yet another disastrous consequence of the events ofthe previous year. In the summer of 1967 the British had been accused,falsely, of assisting Israel in the Middle East war. In November of thesame year British troops were compelled to leave Aden. The issue of Adenbecame part of a larger debate on the withdrawal of British forces East ofSuez and whether or not Britain could afford to remain a world power.During the economic emergency in November 1967 the pound sterlingwas devalued from $2.80 to $2.40. The decision to end the Britishpresence in the Gulf in a narrow sense was the direct consequence of thecollapse in Aden and the simultaneous sterling crisis. In a more general

The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Vol.31, No.1, January 2003, pp.83–108PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON

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sense there was a crisis of disillusionment with the British Empire. ‘I amsure’, wrote one British official in the Gulf, ‘that most of our presentdifficulties stem from the appalling lack of confidence the Saudi Arabiansand Gulf Arabs have in us, following devaluation and the decision towithdraw, not to mention the Aden débacle.’4 The British did not plan toleave the Gulf because they wanted to, or for reasons concerning the Gulfitself. They left, in short, because of the decision of Harold Wilson’sLabour Government to rescue the British economy by taking severemeasures including the evacuation of all troops from South-East Asia aswell as those from the Gulf. Some of Wilson’s colleagues in the Cabinetbelieved they were compelled to compromise socialist principles byintroducing prescription charges into the National Health Service. They inturn insisted on cutbacks in the defence budget. They preferred to preservewhat they could of the welfare state rather than to shore up the remainingparts of the British Empire. They were especially reluctant to agree toexpenditures that would, in their view, continue to buoy up the ‘oil-richfeudal sheikhs’.

In Britain the public mood in 1967 reflected ambivalence about the endof empire and, later in the year, anxiety about devaluation. The HighCommissioner in Aden referred to ‘the tiresome air of guilt about ouractivities in Aden’.5 The war in Aden, which concluded with the ignominyof evacuation, marked the nadir in the popularity of the British Empire, butit was by no means certain that the public or Parliament would tolerate thedecision to leave the Gulf. From 1968 onwards, Conservative leadersincluding the future Prime Minister, Edward Heath, and the former PrimeMinister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, threatened that the course might bereversed in the event of a Tory victory in the next election.

While taking into account the British as well as the Middle Easterndimension of the problem, any analysis of withdrawal from the Gulfwould not be complete without touching on the United States and theSoviet Union. The year 1967 was a critical time in the escalation of thewar in Vietnam. According to Michael Weir, the official at the Foreign andCommonwealth Office who played a prominent part in the withdrawalfrom the Gulf: ‘The U.S. Government continue to believe that the presentBritish position in the Gulf is crucial to the stability of the area.’6 Whenthe British announced the decision to withdraw all forces East of Suez, theAmericans regarded it as a betrayal. Again, there is an element of ironybecause earlier the Americans as anti-colonialists had urged the break-upof the European colonial empires. The Americans now fully appreciatedthe dangers of instability in the aftermath of British withdrawal in the Gulfjust as in South-East Asia. For the United States, British departure fromthe Gulf increased the danger of a Soviet takeover. The British themselves

84 THE JOURNAL OF IMPERIAL AND COMMONWEALTH HISTORY

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viewed the potential contest not only as a distinct episode in the Cold Warbut also as the last instalment in the Great Game in Asia now being playedout in the civil war in the Yemen. The late 1960s and 1970s wererevolutionary times. Both the Soviet Union and Communist Chinasupported the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, as the new post-British Aden state was called. The revolution in Yemen might sweepthrough Arabia to the Gulf itself.

Julian Amery, a Member of Parliament who represented the imperialistwing of the Conservative Party, caught another part of the public mood byalluding to the Roman Empire: ‘the Legions are under orders to return’.7 Heand many other critics believed the withdrawal to be a scuttle. In theconfused circumstances, no one at the time could clearly answer thequestion, who would be the successor? The two major contenders were Iranand Saudi Arabia, now confronting each other, so it seemed to someobservers, in a manner that portended a clash between Persian and Arabcivilisations.8 The traditional British aim had been to prevent thedomination of either, and to preserve the dynastic states of the Gulf bypromoting some form of union, if not a federation.

The British Protected States in the Gulf were remnants of the British Rajin India.9 They enjoyed, according to some observers, an ‘inflated status’ ofa bygone era.10 The principalities in the Gulf were, like others on the outerreaches of India, brought under British control during the nineteenth century(the exceptions were Kuwait and Qatar, which remained outside the Britishsphere until 1899 and 1916 respectively). The senior British official in theGulf was the Political Resident in Bahrain, who supervised Political Agentsin Bahrain itself, Kuwait, Qatar, the Trucial States (later the United ArabEmirates), and Oman, which in international law was an independent andsovereign state but in effect a British protected state. The Gulf systemsurvived the Raj. At the time of Indian independence in 1947, protection ofoil in the Gulf replaced the defence of India as a justification for the Britishpresence. The Foreign Office took over the supervision of the Gulfterritories from the India Office, though the Political Resident functionedmore like a Colonial Governor. The British controlled defence and foreignaffairs. Political Agents ruled some parts of the Gulf such as the TrucialStates in the same way that district officers administered other parts of theEmpire.11 On the other hand, the degree of control in Qatar was minimal.British paramountcy was thus uneven, but throughout the Gulf the systemof rule or control preserved the ‘medieval’ or ‘fossilised’ principalities, asthey were commonly called, as well as the original pattern of local politics.Nevertheless there were significant changes. After 1947 the Foreign Officemodernised the legal and social systems by revising the legal codes andabolishing slavery.12

85BRITISH WITHDRAWAL FROM THE GULF

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The British military and naval presence was essentially regulatory incontrolling or stabilising the region, maintaining the peace, and keepingother powers out. The Gulf resembled a British lake. But only in 1949 – alate development in Britain’s imperial history – did the term ProtectedStates come into official usage. In Glen Balfour-Paul’s words, it was aForeign Office designation for an otherwise inexplicable status describing aconfiguration of territories that were, even by Imperial Britain’s standards,‘uniquely curious’.13 The very titles ‘Resident’ and ‘Political Agent’ evokedthe antiquated usage of the Government of India.

The public controversy on the withdrawal resounded with denunciationsthat the breach of faith with the rulers of the Gulf states was a betrayal noless egregious than the abrogation of the treaties with the Indian princes in1947. To anticipate a major point in connection with the transfer of powerin India in 1947, the setting of a deadline – the end of 1971 – helped todetermine the outcome, as it had in India a quarter of a century earlier.Geoffrey Arthur, who served as the Under-Secretary supervising MiddleEastern affairs in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and in 1970became the last Political Resident, once commented that more progress wasmade in the two years after 1967 than the British had achieved ‘in thetwenty two preceding years since World War Two’.14

What sort of progress did the British have in mind? Was it towards afederation or some more modest type of unity? Federations were the granddesign of the 1950s and 1960s, in the Caribbean and South-East Asia as wellas in Africa and the Middle East. The break-up of the West Indies Federationin 1962 demonstrated that the trend probably would be towards fragmentationand the birth of tiny states in the Commonwealth as well as in the UnitedNations. Among the British Protected States of the Gulf, only Bahrain andperhaps Qatar held out much hope as viable units, and even they representedthe type of ‘micro-state’, as the phenomenon later became known, thateveryone wanted to avoid. There was little hope for effective unity, above allbecause the spectre of Aden hovered over the Gulf.15 In view of the fate ofAden’s federation, could one reasonably expect a similar scheme to succeed?Sir Kennedy Trevaskis, the former High Commissioner in Aden andmastermind behind the plans for federating the port of Aden with thesheikhdoms in the hinterland, visited the Gulf in 1968. According to JulianBullard, the Political Agent in Dubai, Trevaskis drew a gloomy conclusion:

Although the personalities [in the Gulf] were different, the problemswere the same. The Southern Arabian Federation had failed, and if ithad not been for pressure by the British Government it would nevereven have got off the ground. Trevaskis did not conceal his scepticismabout the future …16


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In Bahrain, Anthony Parsons, the Political Agent, reported that theBahrainis regarded any type of unity among the sheikhdoms as ‘a stockjoke’, though this generalisation demanded a qualification. Among theyounger generation in Bahrain, those below the age of 35, there was ‘agenuine emotional predilection for Arab unity in general and … for theunification of the Gulf States’.17 The British were hardly optimistic, nor didthey set their sights too high. If the exacting demands of a federation provedimpossible, they would aim at the more amorphous goal of a lesser union,in part because it would be better than nothing: ‘a union of some kind isbetter than complete chaos’.18

From 1967 onwards there were no illusions about the immensity of thetask in bringing unity among the nine or so rulers of the Gulf. In Qatar thePolitical Agent compared the task ahead with the hero’s quest in Pilgrim’sProgress: ‘the path to unanimity through the swamps, jungles and thicketsof temptation, jealousy, and greed will make the Pilgrim’s Progress look likea Sunday afternoon ramble of happiness and sunshine’.19

I

The announcement of abrupt departure seemed all the more glaring sinceonly two months previously the British had given assurances that theirpresence would continue until political and security arrangements could bemade for a post-British era. In November 1967 Goronwy Roberts, theMinister of State in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, had visited theGulf. With unfailing canniness Harold Wilson had shifted Roberts from theWelsh Office to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office because there weretoo many senior ministers from North Wales cluttering the Welsh Office. Akindly man, Roberts was out of his depth, but he was sent to the Middle Eastfollowing a major discussion in Whitehall on the future of the Britishposition in the Gulf. He reassured the Rulers – and the Shah of Iran – thatrumours of an impending British departure were unfounded and that Britainwould, in Roberts’s words, remain in the Gulf ‘so long as was necessary anddesirable to ensure the peace and stability of the area’.20 Roberts left nodoubt at all: ‘he was explicit that there was no thought of withdrawal in ourminds’.21

The Rulers had been greatly relieved to learn that the British had nointention of leaving without making arrangements for their security. Britishforces would continue to provide the peaceful conditions necessary foreconomic development. The axe did not fall. But no sooner had the Rulers– and the Political Agents – taken in this good news than they learned thatRoberts would again visit the region in January 1968, this time with theunhappy message that, mainly for financial reasons, the British military


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presence would end in 1971. Roberts insisted as a point of honour that hereturn to the Gulf to convey the bad news, though he himself did not seemto recognise the ‘credibility gap’ created in the minds of the Rulers by thereversal.22 16 January 1968 – the day of the public announcement – livedthen and forever after in Gulf history as an infamous date. The Middle Easthands at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office referred to the decision asthe double-cross. Sir Stewart Crawford, the penultimate Political Residentin the Gulf (1966–70), reported that the Rulers felt betrayed.23 So also did atleast one of the Political Agents. Anthony Parsons in Bahrain wroteafterwards:

The deed was done and that was that. But I was deeply troubled aboutmy personal position and slept little that night … How could I nowconfront this volte-face and retain my own honour? I realized that, ifI were to resign, this act would change nothing and would not createeven a ripple on the surface of events. But these were not reasons forfailing to do the right thing.24

Parsons stayed on because the Ruler himself urged him not to quit. ButParsons did so with strong feelings about the unethical behaviour of theBritish government. Not only would Britain’s military presence beterminated but also the protective treaties.

The urgency of the situation led to comprehensive, intense discussionswithin the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on how best to prepare forthe British departure in view of the uncertainty of still more defence cutsand the possibility that the British Army might be drawn into a majoroperation in Northern Ireland.25 In any event the withdrawal would be acomplex process varying from principality to principality. The British hadto deal immediately with the tense relations between Bahrain and Qatar,and the relations between these two important sheikhdoms and what werethen known as the Trucial States (the word ‘Trucial’ derived from thetreaty signed in 1854 by the British and ruling sheikhs who agreed to a‘perpetual maritime truce’). The Trucial States – which became known asthe United Arab Emirates – were Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and the five northernor small Trucial States of Ajman, Sharjah, Um al Qaiwain, Fujairah, andRas al Khaimah. Of these, the British were mostly concerned with AbuDhabi and Dubai because of oil. The rest were impoverished and slight inpopulation as well as resources, but significant because they could causetrouble by embracing radical Arab nationalism and perhaps block theproposed union.

The British connection with Bahrain – and what was still called thesteel frame of British administration – was as sturdy as in any other


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territory in the Middle East.26 Bahrain was the seat of both the Residentand the Political Agent. It was a miniature bastion for the Royal Navy. Thehouses of British expatriates and service personnel in Manamah, thecapital, bore names such as ‘Curzon, Piccadilly, and Britannia’.27 Britishrule in Bahrain was more far-reaching than in any other Gulf state, in partbecause of the jurisdiction, inherited from the Raj, over the large foreignpopulation of workers in the oil fields and in virtually all other sectors ofthe economy. Bahrain had developed as the first oil-producing state in theGulf. Oil began to flow in 1931, but the reserves proved to be minorcompared to those in Kuwait and elsewhere. The ruling family, the AlKhalifah, in the 1950s had faced radical or militant demands for reform,but nationalist protest had, on the whole, been effectively dealt with, in theview of the British Resident, by ‘first class British leadership’.28 WhenSelwyn Lloyd, the Foreign Secretary in 1956, visited Bahrain shortlybefore the Suez crisis, he encountered violent denunciation, the eventitself reflecting the turbulence in a society that included Iranians, Indians,Palestinians, and others who mainly worked in the oil fields. The currentsof Arab nationalism ran deep, but so also did the undertow of cultural andreligious affinity with Shia Iran. ‘We employ a surprising number ofArabs who speak Arabic with a Persian accent’, wrote the Resident inBahrain, ‘and read magazines from Tehran, not Cairo.’29 But there couldbe no doubt about the Arab character of the population as a whole.According to Michael Weir, whose writings often reflected an awarenessof problems of the British Empire in other parts of the world: ‘Bahrain isno Cyprus: it is demonstrably an Arab country.’30

The Resident judged that Bahrain was the most advanced of theProtected States but also the most complex. He drew a comparison withQatar:

By Gulf standards Bahrain is relatively sophisticated with a developedGovernment and educated population; on the other hand it is poor inoil resources …

Qatar, far less sophisticated, only recently embarked on moderneducation, more dominated by its ruling family than is Bahrain, hasnevertheless far greater oil resources and wealth and a clearer idea ofthe policy to follow … The Al Khalifah of Bahrain and the Al Thaniof Qatar are . . . still, despite our efforts to bring them together, likeoil and water …31

The British accurately sensed that Bahrain marched out of step with most ofthe other Protected States and would probably move towards separateindependence rather than inclusion in any possible union.


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In view of the danger of ‘general upheaval’ in Bahrain, and thepossibility of ‘subversion’ from Egypt and other radical Arab states, thechances of inclusion in a union were problematical – above all because Iranclaimed Bahrain as a lost province. Until Iran’s territorial claims to Bahrainand other minor islands could be resolved, the future of the plan for unitywould be in doubt.32 Iran held an implicit veto over the union, or at leastconsiderable influence, because none of the sheikhdoms could afford to beon bad terms with the major power in the region. If the union were to comeinto being, it would need Iran’s acquiescence if not active support.

In contrast with Bahrain, Qatar represented the British Empire in one ofits most minuscule proportions. But the economic stakes were large, as theywere in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. By the 1960s Qatar produced half theamount of oil of neighbouring Abu Dhabi and could rank as among thewealthiest states per capita in the world. Geoffrey Arthur once wrote ofQatar: ‘It is the least attractive of the Gulf States, its Rulers are the leastpleasant and least responsive to British pressures. They are also the mostlikely to last, for they are tough, prolific, united, and above all capable ofidentifying, and ruthless in pursuing, their own interests.’33

In wealth and prosperity, Abu Dhabi and Dubai even in British timesbelonged to a class of their own. The discovery of oil in Abu Dhabi in 1958led to a growth rate in the 1960s four times that of Kuwait and to a positionof unquestioned prominence in the region. Dubai developed essentially as acity-state and eventually possessed the largest dry dock in the world. Itbecame one of the leading centres of commerce in the Gulf, regarded bysome contemporaries as having the potential of another Hong Kong. ButAbu Dhabi and Dubai had opposite political attractions within the largerArab world. Sheikh Rashid of Dubai thought that the natural ally of the Gulfstates was Saudi Arabia.34 Sheikh Zaid of Abu Dhabi believed pragmaticallythat Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt not only should be recognised as theleader of revolutionary Arab nationalism but should be represented in theGulf as part of the new order post-1968.35 The idea of Egypt having a formalpresence violated the basic British premise ‘to keep Nasser out of theGulf’.36

The fundamental or traditional British assumption on excluding Egyptneeded to be reassessed. Should it not now be assumed that Britain’s futurein the larger reaches of the Middle East depended on better relations withEgypt? One Foreign Office official, D.J. Speares, wrote in July 1968: ‘I amquite convinced that our over-all interests in the Middle East are likely to befurthered by … cultivating and maintaining good relations’ with Egypt‘rather than by the policies we followed in the past.’37 What then to make ofthe overtures by some of the Gulf states to Egypt? The question placed thosepondering the future of the Gulf in a quandary. Should the British ‘allow our


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feckless clients to be seduced under our eyes’?38 In any event the Gulf statesformed quasi-alliances or, to put it no higher, informal contacts, not onlyamong themselves but with others beyond the Gulf in the pursuit of localaims: Qatar with Saudi Arabia, Dubai with Iran, Abu Dhabi and some of thelesser Sheikhdoms with Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries.39 Thesewere combinations or inclinations that shifted from issue to issue andsometimes from month to month, but throughout the Gulf itself the popularpro-Nasser or pan-Arab nationalist sentiment continued to trouble theBritish. It became clear only gradually that Nasser’s eclipse created a morefavourable climate for British withdrawal. According to a Foreign Officeminute on the events of 1967: ‘The June war was the turning point … wewould never have had a chance of making an orderly withdrawal from theGulf nor would the Sheikhs have had a chance of survival if therevolutionary Arabs had not been completely deflated by the results of theJune war.’40

To the north, in the richest of the Gulf states, Kuwait faced ever-increasing pressures from the radical Arab world, above all from Nasser’sEgypt, to share its wealth for development in the Middle East rather than forinvestment purposes in London. In 1961 Kuwait had become independent.41

But Iraq regarded Kuwait as an Iraqi province and immediately threatenedto invade the country. The British intervened to establish once and for allthat Kuwait must be respected as a sovereign state with no connection toIraq, though, as will be seen, Iraqi ambitions again preoccupied the Britishbefore their departure from the Gulf – as did the possibility of revolution inKuwait.42

The intervention in Kuwait in 1961 left a lingering anti-Britishsentiment. Kuwait also had tense relations with its neighbours. TheKuwaitis saw themselves at the vortex of a troubled region. The BritishAmbassador, Sir Sam Falle, wrote in 1970, on the eve of withdrawal fromthe Gulf:

Kuwait feels threatened in general terms by progressive ArabSocialism and in specific terms by its manifestations in neighbouringStates – Iraqi irredentism, pressure on the Sultan of Muscat inspiredfrom Aden, discontent and subversion in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain …Again, there is fear of the Iranian empire and an arrogant Persiandomination of the area. The insoluble and interminable Arab–Israelconflict continues to disturb even the placid waters of the Gulf … Therich Kuwaitis wonder what to do.43

The foreign population in Kuwait outnumbered the native Kuwaitis. Therewere not only Indians and Iranians but also Palestinians, Iraqis, Syrians,


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Lebanese, Egyptians, and others from the lower Gulf. ‘Without them theState would collapse.’44 Kuwait would probably not play a significant partin bringing about a union among the principalities in the lower Gulf, in partbecause of the historical evolution of the Gulf states: ‘the Kuwaitis rightlyor wrongly are disliked by the Rulers of the Southern States as arrogant andpresumptuous upstarts’.45

To the far south, the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman was ‘the odd stateout’, not merely because of its geographical position but because it wouldneed ‘about 600 years’ to catch up with the other Gulf states.46 Embroiled incivil war, and in any event self-absorbed, Oman played only a marginal partin the debate about the union of the Gulf states. From 1965 the Britishintervened decisively in the Dhofar rebellion. The Dhofar region wasadjacent to the Aden Protectorate, as the territory was then known. By themid-1960s the Yemen civil war engulfed Dhofar – described by theResident in the Gulf as ‘the best guerilla country in the Middle East [where]… the Sultan’s Armed Forces are fighting communist gangs supplied fromAden … [and who are] controlled by men dedicated to change of the mostviolent and radical kind, men who forbid prayer and whose reading, if theyread at all, is not the Koran but the Thoughts of Chairman Mao’.47 Part ofthe aim of the revolutionary movement was to destroy all of the dynasticstates of the Gulf. The civil war had not yet worked its way to a conclusionby the time of the British withdrawal from the Gulf in 1971, but in theprevious year the British had assisted in the overthrow of Oman’s ruler, theSultan bin Taimur – who in the British view was a dangerous anachronism– and his replacement by his son, the present ruler of Oman, Qaboos binSaid, who had been educated at Sandhurst and had served in the BritishArmy. For our purposes, the significance of the Sultanate of Muscat andOman is that it held the line against the Yemeni revolution during the periodof British withdrawal from the Gulf.

II

Three regional powers claimed parts of the Gulf. Confronting Saudi Arabia,Iran, and Iraq, the British pursued a goal of triple containment, though thisposture often seemed passive rather than active. They needed to keep SaudiArabia reassured that their departure would not create a sort of Palestine inthe Gulf. They hoped that Iran would not seize the disputed islands untilafter they had left. They viewed the possibility of Iraqi expansion asrelatively dormant, but it nevertheless caused concern.

From the vantage point of Saudi Arabia, the decision to leave the Gulfreinforced Saudi impressions of the loss of British nerve in Aden.According to the British Ambassador, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia ‘feels


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that by our actions in the Arabian Peninsula we have encouraged those whowould endanger the security of his country and of its dynasty’.48 Havingwatched the British leave Aden under humiliating circumstances, andbelieving that their will to rule had cracked, King Faisal wondered whetherthe Gulf might now suffer the same fate. Might there be a domino effectfrom Aden to the Gulf with the toppling of one principality after the next?In responding to such questions, the Resident believed that the Britishposition in the Gulf differed radically from the circumstances of Britishcolonial rule in Aden. Sir Stewart Crawford, usually restrained andunemotional, wrote with unusual passion during the actual withdrawal fromAden in late 1967:

In the Gulf … we do not have, as we have had in Aden, to constitutea new government, the Rulers are all firmly in their saddles and canbe counted on to show much more sense, guts and leadership than theAden Amirs … Instead of a Yemen next door there is a reasonablysolid and pretty inert Saudi Arabia.49

Such optimistic views, expressed without the insult about being inert, failedto make an impression on the Saudis. But the calculation that Saudi Arabiawould remain ‘inert’ had a bearing on the outcome.

Saudi Arabia supported the effort to create a union, so the Britishbelieved, only because the sheikhdoms might otherwise fall prey to Iran.Indeed the British sensed that, if the union succeeded, the Saudis might bewilling silently to forget but not forgive the long-standing dispute over theBuraimi oasis, the point of reputed oil deposits in the desert where Oman,Saudi Arabia, and Abu Dhabi collided. British departure might provide the‘escape hatch’ out of the decades-old controversy in which the three stateswere emotionally as well as strategically entangled. This estimate onBuraimi proved to be far too optimistic. The Saudis remained adamant onclaims to the oasis, and they were also consistent in their outlook on theGulf. According to King Faisal, ‘the Gulf sheikhdoms are historically,geographically and politically Saudi Arabia’s preserve and no one else’s’.50

The British themselves were sceptical of these far-reaching Saudi claims tothe region: ‘Saudi ignorance of the people and territories on their bordersand the inadequacies of their governmental machinery and personnel makeit unlikely that they can quickly assume any major role in the Gulfterritories, and perhaps risky for them to attempt it’ because of pan-Arabnationalism.51

Revolutionary Arab nationalism posed a threat not only to the King ofSaudi Arabia but also to the Shah of Iran. In early 1967 Sir Denis Wright,the Ambassador in Tehran, remarked that the British were, ‘in the Shah’s


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eyes, still the only real bulwark against Nasserite expansion’.52 The decisionto withdraw came as a shock to the Shah no less than to King Faisal, thoughthe British had tried to prepare the way. The King no less than the Shahbelieved the British to be acting not in their own interest, indeed irrationally.Both regarded the Sheikhdoms in the Gulf as British puppets. Each hadsuspicions of British motives, though the Saudi view of British abdicationreflected a general Arab anxiety – that the British were creating ‘anotherPalestine’ in the Gulf by supporting Iran’s bid for mastery of the region.

Just as the British denied giving aid and comfort to Israel, so they alsovigorously rejected charges of collaboration with Iran, especially in the caseof Bahrain. The British believed that the Shah had no actual ambition totake over Bahrain but, like any ancient claim, it could not be easilyrepudiated. ‘He does not wish to go down in history as the man who lightlyabandoned his country’s “14th Province”.’53 But he intended, in one way oranother, to free himself, in his own words, from the Bahrainian ‘millstone’.54

In contrast, there were other territorial claims that the Shah wouldrelentlessly pursue. He aimed to annex the islands called the Tunbs in thenarrow entrance to the straits of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf,and Abu Musa, an island in the middle of the Gulf slightly on the Arab sidethat eventually became known as the farthest Iranian outpost in the Gulf. SirDenis Wright commented: ‘I am quite certain that the Iranians will walk intothe Tunbs when we leave if no prior agreement has been reached, and [I am]almost as certain that in those circumstances they would decide they mightas well go the whole hog and walk into Abu Musa as well.’55 Virtually allIranian oil exports passed through the Straits and it was thus understandablethat the Shah attached strategic significance to the Greater and LesserTunbs.

In a larger sense, according to the British Embassy staff in Tehran, ‘theShah has never taken his eyes off Nasser’. Such was the Shah’spreoccupation with Nasser that it resembled a fixation:

His obsessive hatred of Nasser … has grown steadily since thedownfall of the Nuri régime in Iraq in 1958. This the Shahtransliterates into a major physical threat to Iran in the Persian Gulf.56

Nasser … [is] enemy No. 1.57

The Shah carefully assessed each move made in response to Nasser, andbelieved that the collapse in Aden was ‘the beginning of the end’ for theBritish in the Gulf. The British were opting out. The Shah was in thestruggle to the end. The disputed islands were merely part of an overallbattlefield. ‘What the Shah is really concerned with is who will control theGulf as a whole when we leave.’58


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The other Middle Eastern state with a claim to the Gulf was Iraq.Though the Iraqi dimension of the problem did not emerge until relativelylate in the 1968–71 period, it was nevertheless significant because itrepresented the response of revolutionary Arab socialism and with it,perhaps, the support of the Soviet Union. There was also the specificterritorial claim. Just as Iran regarded Bahrain as a lost province, so did Iraqview Kuwait as part of Iraq proper. Through intelligence sources the Britishdetected ‘renewed Iraqi ambitions towards Kuwait’. And Iraqi influenceextended far beyond the northern Gulf. Iraq also lent assistance to the rebelsin the Dhofar province of Oman. The flashpoint in the Gulf itself might wellbe Bahrain: ‘There is … a natural tendency for the Shi’a who form 50% ofBahrain’s population to look towards Iraq’.59 In sum, the Iraqis aspired to noless than ‘a dominant position in the Arab Gulf’ by promoting a revolutionagainst the dynastic states. In so doing they would not only advance therevolutionary socialist cause but also preserve the Gulf against Iranianinvaders. According to the Ambassador in Baghdad, Glen Balfour-Paul, theproblem had an obsessive quality to it:

For the Iraqis, as for many other Arabs, safeguarding the Arabism ofthe Gulf means primarily the exclusion of Iranian influence from itswestern shores. But because of the rivalry, hostility and mistrustexisting for other reasons between Iraq and Iran, the exclusion ofIranian influence takes on for the Iraqis a significance which it doesnot have for other interested Arab parties … For the Iraqis, who seean Iranian burglar under every bed, the Arabism of the Gulf States is… an obsession.

To the pan-Arab revolutionaries of Iraq it is, like the struggle forPalestine, part and parcel of the single, all-embracing dogma of Arabrevolution.60

Iraqi ambitions themselves might not have seemed so alarming had it notbeen for the context of the Cold War: ‘There can scarcely be any doubt thatthe Soviet Union would welcome the emergence of revolutionary régimesin the oil States of the Gulf’.61

III

In view of the obstacles to unity of the Gulf states, one is reminded of thereference to Pilgrim’s Progress. Yet in the end the British left the Gulf withthe political system of the dynastic states intact and the seven former TrucialStates united in a federal structure known today as the United ArabEmirates. With the brief exception of the period of the Gulf War of 1991,


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when the state of Kuwait momentarily ceased to exist, the system hasendured to the present. How then did the British manage to do it? What werethe step-by-step measures taken from the time of the shock of theannouncement that Britain would depart to the time of the formation of thefederal union of the Emirates in late 1971? Until very late in the day, itappeared that the Iranian claims to the disputed islands would prevent theemergence of a federation. Just as significant, the odds seemed to beoverwhelmingly against the sheikhs themselves coming to an agreement ona federal constitution. On the British side, in January 1968 there wascollective dismay at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and among thePolitical Agents in the Gulf. But after British officials recovered from initialconsternation, they quickly and systematically, though not optimistically,began to work for a union of the sheikhdoms including Bahrain and Qatar.Michael Weir wrote: ‘We owe it to the Gulf States as well as ourselves todo the utmost in the time available.’62

After 16 January, the rulers of the Gulf feared, not without reason, thatthe British would ‘sell them down the river’. The Political Resident reportedon the frantic exchanges between the Sheikhs on how best to defendthemselves: ‘All sorts of wild and impractical ideas are being ventilated.’63

The first tangible step occurred in February 1968 when the Rulers of AbuDhabi and Dubai abruptly agreed to unite and, without further consultation,invited the other rulers to join them. This move was ‘greeted with fury bythe ruler of Qatar’.64 Seizing a short-lived initiative, the Ruler of Qatarsecured the agreement of all of the nine protected states to create, inprinciple, a union. This was known as the Dubai Agreement.65 It marked asignificant step towards unity, though there appeared to be no way ofreconciling the ancient animosities of Qatar and Bahrain. The Britishsupported the idea of a ‘loose confederation’ that would include both Qatarand Bahrain plus the seven Trucial States.66 The onus of failure would thusfall on the states refusing to join or, conversely, the success would dependon those willing to combine, perhaps in a tighter union of Abu Dhabi,Dubai, and the lesser five northern sheikhdoms. ‘The Rulers of the fivesmall and impecunious Northern Trucial States’, the Political Residentreported, ‘are in complete confusion and are looking in all directions to seewhere they can run for cover.’67 The Ruler of Ras el Khaimah was especiallyvulnerable because he exercised jurisdiction over the island of Abu Musa –one of the disputed islands claimed by Iran. Now that the British haddeclared their intention to leave the Gulf, when would Iran step in to occupyAbu Musa and the two Tunbs? If Iran seized the islands, the Shah – and theBritish – would be confronted with ‘a united hostile [Arab] front’.68 Themove might precipitate a Saudi pre-emptive strike against Buraimi and thusupset the delicate territorial balance at the juncture between Abu Dhabi,


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Oman, and Saudi Arabia. The overall problem was proving to be ascomplicated and daunting as the British had anticipated.

Whatever the perils of Iran or Saudi Arabia, or of the sheikhs failing tocome to an agreement, there was also the hazard of the leaders of theConservative Party attempting to reverse course and retain Britain’s militarypresence in the Gulf beyond 1971 – thus destroying the degree of unity thatthe Political Agents had been able to achieve against considerable odds. In1968 the leader of the Conservative Party, Edward Heath, challenged theLabour government’s decision to withdraw all troops east of Suez. Hecontinued his attack, with an increasing emphasis on the Gulf, to the time ofthe election in the summer of 1970. This created a problem for those nowplanning an orderly withdrawal. Whatever qualms one might have hadpersonally – Anthony Parsons for example believing that the Britishgovernment had betrayed its trust – a reversal might be even worse. Even ifthe British government decided to stay on, would the British now bewelcomed by the rulers of the Gulf? Parsons wrote about Bahrain in acomment that applied to other Gulf states as well: ‘Virtually everyone …considered that the decision could not be reversed and that an attempt to doso might precipitate an Aden situation here.’69

No one of course could anticipate what a Conservative governmentmight actually do, or what might take place in the meantime. The MiddleEast experts however were sceptical to a man that the course could bereversed to pre-16 January 1968. Though the Sheikhs under the initial shockhad proclaimed themselves willing to do virtually anything to extend theBritish presence, including themselves paying for the upkeep of Britishtroops, the British detected a subtle change of attitude. Whatever the futuremight hold, things would never again be the same after 16 January. In oneway or another the Sheikhs would have to rely on their own devices. On theBritish side, the decision to withdraw had merely recognised, in GeoffreyArthur’s words, ‘the writing on the wall’. The British system in the Gulfwas already ‘an anachronism’.70 While still at the Foreign andCommonwealth Office, Arthur believed that neither Gulf nationalists northe British public, on the whole, realistically would expect the British tostay on: ‘Whereas surprisingly few elements in the Gulf, even amongnationalists, welcomed our policy to withdraw, it is unlikely that anysubstantial body of opinion in the Gulf or around it would feel that the clockcan now be turned back.’71 Once a sweeping decision of this magnitude hadbeen made, it would be virtually impossible to reverse it. And it wasinevitable that dormant claims would be renewed at the same time that Iran,Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia all now demanded Britain’s departure.

In the larger period 1967–71 there were two turning points, both mid-way through the chronological sequence. One had to do with


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developments in the Gulf itself, the other with British politics. The firstwas the resolution of the claim to Bahrain by Iran in May 1970. Until thiscloud over Bahrain’s future could be dissipated, no substantial progresscould be made because none of the Gulf states could afford to antagoniseIran. In the case of Bahrain itself there were internal ethnic and religiousreasons why it was necessary to remain on as good terms as possible withIran. From the beginning, soon after the announcement by the British thatthey would leave, all nine of the Gulf states – the larger groupingincluding Bahrain and eventually even Qatar – in February 1968 hadagreed to study the feasibility of a union. As has been mentioned, this wasknown as the Dubai agreement and it marked the beginning of detailedstudies and talks on such matters as the pooling of sovereignty,representation and other constitutional questions, defence, immigration,the choice of a capital, currency, and, not least, the question of a flag.These were the discussions that paved the way for the eventual union.Julian Bullard commented on ‘the confused and conspiratorial manner inwhich the talks have been conducted: mostly in whispers, on sofas, in oddcorners … with messengers trotting from one little group to another’.72

But until May 1970 it appeared that little progress was being madebecause the political issue of Bahrain remained unsettled and with it thenature and numbers of the union, indeed its very existence.

The British themselves appeared to be playing an essentially passive partbecause they too needed the goodwill of the Shah to make the union asuccess. They believed that the Shah would accept a face-saving device toresolve the issue of Bahrain (but would prove to be unyielding on the otherissue of the small islands). Yet no one could come up with a formula forBahrain until the idea was put forward that the United Nations might cometo the rescue. In Iran, Sir Denis Wright played a crucial part in devising thisformula by suggesting that the Iranians themselves might turn to the UnitedNations to determine the actual sentiment of the Bahrainis. Wright relied onthe principle that extraordinary things can be accomplished if someone elsetakes credit for them. This was an intricate task, but it worked. In late March1970 a four-man UN mission under an Italian named Winspeare Guicciardi,who by all accounts did a brilliant job, established that virtually allBahrainis were unanimous in wanting an independent Arab state.73 On 9May the Security Council unanimously endorsed the report and Iranformally abandoned its claim to Bahrain. Bahrain was now on its way tobecoming a member of the United Nations. Qatar shortly afterwards alsodeclared the intention to become an independent state and to apply for UNmembership. Qatar’s population of 200,000 met the minimal requirementfor UN membership. The resolution of the Bahrain problem broke thedeadlock over Qatar and the Trucial States as well as for Bahrain itself.


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The other watershed occurred in British politics with the victory of theConservative Party in the summer of 1970. The Prime Minister, EdwardHeath, had been insistent that the Labour government had broken pledgesand abandoned its responsibilities.74 He had himself visited the Gulf in1969 and had repeatedly stated that the British must regain their nerve andrestore Britain’s good name. At one point he said to Geoffrey Arthur:‘we’re going to change policy and the F.O. should be working out how todo it’.75 Heath’s robust and consistent attitude, however, was not entirelyshared by his colleagues. Sir Alec Douglas-Home, who had been theprevious Tory Prime Minister, now returned to office as Foreign Secretary.Home entirely sympathised with Heath’s attitude but he was also realistic.He took the view that he and his colleagues had inherited a situation notof their own making. But he resisted the choice, on the one hand, as hesaw it, of Labour’s aim of cutting loose or, on the other, of reversing andbecoming, in his own phrase, a permanent nanny. He wanted to do neither.He aimed to impose as rigorous a control as possible over events in theGulf, to move forward towards union of the seven Trucial States withoutBahrain and Qatar, and to retain rather than break the military andeconomic links. The British military presence would become less visibleby the removal of land forces but troops would still be available by navaland air units. Home also took a relatively open-minded view of thedisputed islands in the Gulf. Shortly after assuming office, he and DenisWright met with the Shah in Brussels. This was a crucial meeting. Soadamant was the Shah, Home concluded, that the British would simplyhave to hope that Iran would not seize the islands before the Britishdeparture.76 Otherwise Britain would find itself at war with Iran becauseof the protective treaties. Home hoped to avoid a direct conflict bypersuading the Iranians at least to wait until the British departure beforetaking over the islands. He pitched his views on the Gulf in such a way asto win the Prime Minister’s acquiescence. But the main reason why thereturn of the Tories marked a watershed was because Home alsopersuaded Heath to summon Sir William Luce out of retirement to try toresolve the outstanding issues with Iran and Saudi Arabia and to pressforward towards union.

IV

Luce was one of the last great Proconsuls.77 He had a legendary reputationin the Sudan Political Service, where he began his career, and as Governorof Aden and later as Political Resident in the Gulf. In a sense he is acontroversial historical figure because in the 1960s he seemed to be athrowback to an earlier age. For example those who knew him in the early


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1960s, when the British occupied Kuwait to prevent a takeover by Iraq, andwho believed the British intervention to be a mistake, viewed him as apaternalistic, imperial personality whose time had past. These criticsinclude (Sir) Marrack Goulding, who was in Kuwait at the time.78 Otherssuch as Anthony Parsons, who were equally as anti-Empire, found him tobe a forward-looking, pragmatic, and sympathetic personality. Parsonsrecords in his memoirs how he was won over to him after initial scepticism,and how Luce proved to be the saving grace in an exceedingly difficultand complicated situation.79 There is evidence in the Gulf Residencyarchives that Luce’s reappearance was welcomed among the PoliticalAgents and that they themselves had pressed for his appointment. Parsonshimself wrote in 1969 that he favoured ‘enlisting the services of Bill Luceas a sort of father confessor and progress chaser’.80 And there was anotherappointment of significance. Sir Geoffrey Arthur, who had served asAmbassador in Kuwait and then as Middle Eastern Under-Secretary atthe Foreign and Commonwealth Office, now in the summer of 1970became the last Political Resident in the Gulf. This was an exceptionallystrong team.

Luce set out first and foremost to create a union of Bahrain, Qatar, andthe seven Trucial States, even though Bahrain and Qatar would probablypursue separate paths to independence.81 He knew that he could advise andcajole but had no authority to compel. But he used his powers of persuasionto the utmost. Luce could give the impression to Arabs and others includingthe Americans that he was taking them entirely into his confidence whilegiving away nothing. He indefatigably toured the Gulf visiting all parties,flying back and forth to London and to points as far away as Washington.82

He was a figure worthy of the description made earlier of the hero inPilgrim’s Progress making his way through sloughs of jealousy and greed.The Political Agent who made that comment, Ranald Boyle, previously inthe Sudan Political Service, wrote that ‘the whole exercise seems to me …to be very “Arab”. Everyone is trying to promote his own interest, andgenerating a tremendous amount of heat in the process.’83 What Luce didwas patiently to reason with each of the rulers, suggesting in a wayreminiscent of Benjamin Franklin during the American revolution, that itwas in their own interest to hang together because if not they would all hangseparately. In the autumn and winter of 1970–71 the detailed discussions onconstitutional and other matters among the rulers and the Political Agentsnow began to pay off.

Luce was well placed with both the Shah, whose support he needed ifthere was going to be any form of union at all, and King Faisal, who wasindispensable to the project because both Bahrain and Qatar required Saudibacking to join the Arab League as well as the United Nations. Luce had


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ended his tenure as Political Resident before the collapse in Aden and thuswas not tarred with the brush, in Saudi eyes, of the Aden scuttle. To KingFaisal, the paramount goal was to avoid another Aden, indeed anotherPalestine.84 But though Luce was on good terms with both King Faisal andthe Shah, there were certain things that were intractable. These included theSaudi claim to the Buraimi oasis and Iran’s claim to the disputed islands inthe Gulf, which the British insisted belonged to the rulers of Ras al Khaimahand Sharjah. Luce hoped that the Saudis would simply remain silent on theissue of the historic Buraimi dispute. At one point, far from staying passive,the Saudis actually increased their claims but otherwise the Britishcalculation that the Saudis would remain ‘inert’ proved to be accurate. Thedisputed islands were another matter. Luce wrote that the British had toavoid giving the Arabs the impression of a ‘sell out’ of the islands, ‘or evenone of the islands’ to Iran because of the ‘very serious effects indeed on ourrelations with the Arabs generally’.85 The islands of Abu Musa and theTunbs were regarded as Arab territory, especially by Iraq but also by radicalArab states as far away as Libya. The takeover by Iran would be thesurrender of Arab land.

Luce systematically studied the problem and submitted twocomplementary reports that included best and worst case scenarios but alsostated clearly the British goal in terms of self-interest in access to Gulf oil.86

The solution lay in the independence of Bahrain and Qatar and theformation of a union of the seven Trucial States. The groundwork had beenlaid about a year before Luce’s appointment in a seminal study by JulianBullard, the Political Agent in Dubai. Bullard held that a union of the sevenTrucial States – without Qatar and Bahrain – would be a much more logicalproposition.

It is a much more modest objective, and in some ways a moreplausible one. The Seven are geographically contiguous, and theyalready possess certain elements of a unitary structure … Movementof persons and goods from state to state is relatively free, and the onlyimportant gap in the main road system, between Abu Dhabi andDubai, will soon be on the way to being closed.

The seven states are at different stages of political development,perhaps; but their international status is the same. The history andtribal background are intermingled. All this is true of the Seven, butnot the Eight or Nine.87

The defence force in the Trucial States, the Trucial Scouts, 1,700 menstrong, would form the army of the new state. The British would withdrawmilitary units but would enter into defence arrangements that would


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provide naval and air assistance, the training of new military andpolice units, and contract service by British military and police officers.The British presence would thus become more invisible but it would stillbe there.

On one point Luce came into conflict with the Prime Minister.Heath followed these matters with a far greater grasp of detail thanhad Harold Wilson, and Heath disagreed with Luce that all land forcesshould be withdrawn.88 Heath believed along with Julian Amery andothers of the imperialist wing of the Conservative Party that Britain couldcontinue to station battalions and hold enclaves regardless of worldopinion. But in this respect Heath was like Churchill and did not overridehis military and political advisers. The Cabinet decided that thewithdrawal would take place by 1 December 1971. Heath defended thedecision in the House of Commons in March.89 The Luce plan ofwithdrawal survived intact and the United Arab Emirates came intoexistence in December 1971 on target – with the exception of one of thenorthern sheikhdoms, Ras el Khaimah, that joined shortly afterwards inthe next year.

There was a dramatic prelude to independence. Sir Denis Wrighthad been consistently pessimistic about the disputed islands. He hadreiterated that the Shah ‘would go for the islands as soon as we left’.90

Wright proved to be wrong in his prediction by one day. The Britishdeparted on schedule on 1 December. The day before, Iran seized thedisputed islands.91 The Shah thus managed to deflect Arab anger towardsthe British in the last day of British sway. Iraq broke off relations withBritain, and Colonel Qadaffi appropriated the holdings of BritishPetroleum in Libya.92 But the United Arab Emirates survived. It all turnedout, as Sir Geoffrey Arthur commented, exactly as the British had hopedall along but could hardly dare to believe would happen: a new state ongood terms with Britain, no sharp breaks or ruptures, and with the newunion still informally within the British imperial system.93

University of Texas, AustinSt Antony’s College, Oxford


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NOTES

This article is based on the Antonius Lecture at St Antony’s College, Oxford, in June 2002. Ithank the Warden and Fellows for allowing me to publish it in its present form. It draws on certainpassages from my chapter in L. Carl Brown (ed.), Diplomacy in the Middle East (London, 2001).All archival references refer to documents at the Public Record Office.

1. New Statesman, 19 Jan. 1968. For present purposes, the indispensable works on the Gulfare: J.B. Kelly, Arabia, the Gulf and the West (New York, 1980); Glen Balfour-Paul, TheEnd of Empire in the Middle East: Britain’s Relinquishment of Power in Her Last ThreeArab Dependencies (Cambridge, 1991); and Rosemarie Said Zahlan, The Making of theModern Gulf States: Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman(Reading, 1998 edition). See also John Darwin, Britain and Decolonisation (London, 1988),ch.7. Two contemporary articles by D.C. Watt remain invaluable both for analysis and forportraying the controversial nature of the debate in Britain at the time: ‘The Decision toWithdraw from the Gulf’, Political Quarterly, 39, 3 (July–Sept. 1968); and, in the samejournal, ‘Britain and the Indian Ocean’, 42, 3 (July–Sept. 1971).

2. Parliamentary Debates, 17 Jan. 1968, col. 1819.3. Sir Geoffrey Arthur to Douglas-Home, Confidential, 19 April 1971, FCO 8/1572. Arthur

was the last Political Resident in the Gulf.4. R.H.M. Boyle to Political Resident, Confidential, 12 April 1968, FO 1016/860. The

designation FO 1016 refers to the Gulf Residency archives.5. Sir Richard Turnbull at a meeting of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, 21 Feb. 1967, FCO

8/183.6. Memorandum by Michael Weir, Secret, 31 Oct. 1967, FCO 8/78. The US Secretary of State,

Dean Rusk, warned the British at one point: ‘If there is any thought that we might be ableto take on your commitments when you left, as we did in Greece, I must say at once thatthere is no sentiment in this country to take on additional commitments in any area.’Memorandum by Rusk, Secret, 21 April 1967, Foreign Relations of the United States,1964–1968, XII, 565–66.

7. Julian Amery, Joseph Chamberlain and the Tariff Reform Campaign (London, 1969), 1049.8. ‘Differences between Arabs and Iranians are sharp. Two races, two civilizations, as well as

political and commercial rivalries, are involved. Each looks across the inland sea which itregards as its own moat and mistrusts what the people on the other side are up to.’ TheTimes, 17 Aug. 1968.

9. See Robert J. Blyth, ‘Britain versus India in the Persian Gulf: The Struggle for Political Control,c.1928–48’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 28, 1 (Jan. 2000), 90–111.

10. FCO circular despatch, Confidential, 15 Dec. 1969, FO 1016/881.11. According to James Craig, in Dubai, the Political Agent ‘inspects gaols and pursues

smugglers, runs hospitals and builds roads … He decides fishing disputes, negotiates blood-money, examines boundaries, manumits slaves … But above all he must travel: in a longand ceremonious caravan or in a solitary Land Rover; in his own dhow or in an R.A.F.aeroplane; at speed across the gravel desert, slowly and painfully through a mountain wadi,or stuck altogether in the mud of the salt flats … Political Agent Dubai is a splendid job ina splendid place.’ A.J.M. Craig to Political Resident Bahrain, Confidential, 27 Sept. 1964,FO 371/174742.

12. In a word, ‘modernisation’ summed up the British aim, but there was a contradictiondescribed in 1959 that remained true a decade later: ‘If we are to force the pace it will meanthe appearance, if not the fact, of greater interference in internal affairs and the assumptionof increased responsibility at a time when we are trying to build up the self-reliance of theGulf States and actively encouraging rulers to widen the scope of their independence. Thereis, therefore, a certain basic contradiction which will tend to stultify any decisions of policywe may wish to make.’ (Sir George Middleton to Selwyn Lloyd, Confidential, 2 June 1959,DEFE 7/2200) For the issue of modernisation in the post-1967 era, see especially Sir


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Stewart Crawford to FCO, ‘The Modernisation of Her Majesty’s Government’s Relationswith the Protected Gulf States’, Confidential, 5 Jan. 1968, FO 1016/885: ‘I believe that ourprimary aim should be to improve the efficiency of the States’ Administrations … Progressis still patchy.’

13. Balfour-Paul, The End of Empire in the Middle East, 101–02.14. Geoffrey Arthur to T.A.K. Elliot (Washington), Personal and Confidential, 19 June 1969,

FCO 8/934.15. ‘The fate of the West Indies Federation and the Federation in South Arabia was fresh in our

minds.’ Anthony Parsons, They Say the Lion: Britain’s Legacy to the Arabs: A PersonalMemoir (London, 1986), 121. Michael Weir commented: ‘clearly there can be no questionin the time we have left of trying … to promote another “Whitehall Federation” on the linesof South Arabia’. In searching for precedents for a political union that might or might notbe the equivalent of federation, he turned over in his mind the possibility of ‘a titularsovereign … on the Sudanese model’ and ‘a rotating Head of State on the Malaysianmodel’. Weir to Crawford, Confidential, 1 Feb. 1968, FO 1016/855.

16. Julian Bullard to Michael Weir (Bahrain), Confidential, 26 Nov. 1968, FCO 8/915. See alsoParsons to Weir, Confidential, 3 Dec. 1968, FO 1016/749 in which Parsons (Political Agent,Bahrain) related that, in a conversation with the Sheikh Isa of Bahrain, Trevaskis referred toParsons himself as ‘a slave of the Labour Party and cannot speak his own mind …’

17. Parsons to Crawford, Confidential, 22 July 1968, FCO 8/16.18. Minute by Peter Hayman (Deputy Under-Secretary), 15 Dec. 1969, FCO 8/925.19. R.H.M. Boyle (Qatar) to Sir Stewart Crawford (Bahrain), 12 May 1968, FCO 8/12.20. According to the brief for Roberts: ‘We have no plans for withdrawing, we have not set any

time limit to our presence … It will probably not be in our interests to stay in the Gulfbeyond the mid-1970s.’ Brief dated Nov. 1967, FCO 8/142.

21. Crawford to Paul Gore-Booth, Personal and Confidential, 3 Feb. 1968, FO 1016/885. Seealso especially Crawford to FCO, Confidential, 27 Jan. 1968, FCO 8/33.

22. Crawford wrote that Roberts’s previous reassurance ‘only increased the magnitude of thereversal … It seems unfortunate that he is not aware of this himself.’ Crawford to Paul Gore-Booth, Personal and Confidential, 3 Feb. 1968, FO 1016/885.

23. ‘They are greatly perplexed about where to turn, and feel bitterly that we are letting themdown.’ Crawford to FCO, Confidential, 27 Jan. 1968, FCO 8/33.

24. Parsons, They Say the Lion, 134.25. See especially Julian Bullard (Dubai) to Crawford, Confidential, 29 June 1970, FO

1016/757, for reflection on some of the larger issues. For example, in view of their decliningresources should the British ‘merely stand back and watch, or try to take a hand in theknowledge that our intervention may in practice make things worse and not better?’ Bullardidentified one of the problems as the British rationalisation that the plans for withdrawal hadbeen undertaken in the interests of the Rulers themselves. But this line of argument ‘carriedlittle conviction’ with the Rulers, who saw clearly that the decision had been made purelyfor British reasons.

26. See Bernard Burrows, Footnotes in the Sand: The Gulf in Transition, 1953–1958 (Salisbury,Wiltshire, 1990), ch.4.

27. A.J.D. Stirling to Crawford, Confidential, 9 June 1969, FCO 8/1001.28. Crawford to FCO, Confidential, 12 June 1968, FCO 8/3.29. Arthur to FCO, Confidential, 19 April 1971, FCO 8/1572.30. Weir continued: ‘In no sense, numerically or politically, does the Iranian community

constitute a significant minority i.e. comparable to the Turkish Cypriots.’ On another pointof general interest, Weir commented on the Huwala who had emigrated from southernPersia to Bahrain in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: ‘They remind me in someways of those Anglo-Irish families who … [have] the attitude of Protestant Anglo-Irish tothe indigenous Catholics … The younger generation of Huwala … are generally speakingArab nationalist and Nasserite.’ Weir to Political Resident, Confidential, 17 June 1968, FO1016/762.


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31. Crawford to Michael Stewart, Confidential, 9 July 1969, FCO 8/920.32. See Crawford to FCO, ‘The Iranian Claim to Bahrain’, Confidential, 25 June 1968, FO

1016/865.33. Arthur to FCO, Confidential, 19 April 1971, FCO 8/1572.34. Sheikh Rashid of Dubai ‘has personal links with Saudi Arabia, which he sees, rightly or

wrongly, as the main guarantee of stability in the Arabian peninsula … He has alsoattributed to the Egyptians in general two motives; first, hatred of rulers and shaikhlyregimes and, secondly, a longing somehow to get their hands on the wealth of Gulf states.’D.A. Roberts (Dubai) to British Residency Bahrain, Confidential, 27 May 1968, FO1016/862.

35. ‘It looks as if Zaid is keeping his lines open in all directions.’ (Bullard to Weir, Confidential,1 Feb. 1970, FO 1016/739). On Sheikh Zaid and Egypt: ‘He believes that he can handle anyEgyptian mission that should arrive … We shall … remind him of the risks in supping withthe devil.’ (Crawford memorandum of 1 June 1968, Confidential, FO 1016/862) ‘Suppingwith the devil’ was a recurrent theme, and not only in regard to Cairo. Michael Weir wrotein early 1971: ‘At varying times most of the States which have felt threatened, Bahrain, AbuDhabi and Ras al Khaimah, succumbed to the temptation to sup with the devil fromBaghdad.’ (Weir to FCO, 1 Jan. 1971, FCO 8/1570).

36. For example, Crawford to Brenchley, Confidential, 11 April 1967, FCO 8/42.37. Minute by D.J. Speares, 2 July 1968, FCO 8/22.38. Minute by D.J. McCarthy, 5 July 1968, FCO 8/22.39. For example, from the vantage point of the Qataris: ‘They see themselves as the main co-

ordinator for co-operation with Saudi Arabia because of their traditional ties with thatcountry. They also see themselves, with Dubai, as an ally of Iran.’ (Boyle to PoliticalResident, Confidential, 12 April 1968, FO 1016/860). On the point about Egypt, again touse Qatar as an example: ‘Qatar favoured Egypt in the past. This feeling is long since cold… The Qataris suspect most people’s motives, but the Egyptians above all.’ (Boyle toBritish Residency Bahrain, Confidential, 1 June 1968, FO 1016/862). The Political Residentsummed up the salient point: ‘The truth is that everybody seems to suspect everybody else.’(Crawford memorandum of 21 May 1968, Confidential, FO 1016/862)

40. Fragment of a minute, May 1971, FCO 8/1311.41. See Simon C. Smith, Kuwait, 1950–1965: Britain, the al-Sabah, and Oil (Oxford, 1999).42. The Ambassador in Kuwait, Sir Sam Falle, believed Kuwait to be on the verge of revolution

and thought in any event that the British should make contact with moderate‘evolutionaries’ before they became revolutionaries. Falle had been in Baghdad in 1958 andhad anticipated the Iraqi revolution. In the Gulf, however, his colleagues were mainlysceptical. ‘Who are [the] moderate evolutionaries?’ asked the Political Resident (Crawfordto FCO, Confidential, 28 July 1970, FCO 8/1318). In London the head of the ArabianDepartment, Antony Acland, held that prior connections with radicals would not ‘deflectthem … by having had contact with them before their advent to power’. (Acland to Falle,Confidential, 2 July, 1970, FO 1016/757). On Falle, see his autobiography, My Lucky Lifein War, Revolution, Peace and Diplomacy (Lewes, Sussex, 1996).

43. Sam Falle to FCO, Confidential, 1 Jan. 1970, FCO/ 8/1387.44. Arthur to FCO, Confidential, 26 Oct. 1968, FCO 8/1043.45. Crawford to FCO, Confidential, 13 May 1967, FCO 8/42.46. Crawford to FCO, Confidential, 14 Jan. 1969, FCO 8/927; Anthony Parsons to A.J.D.

Stirling, Confidential, 13 April 1968, FCO 8/11.47. Arthur to FCO, Confidential, 19 April 1971, FCO 8/1572.48. Morgan Man to FCO, Confidential, 20 Feb. 1968, FCO 8/757.49. Crawford to Sir Richard Beaumont, Secret and Personal, 28 Oct. 1967, FCO 8/41.50. Morgan Man to FCO, Confidential, 20 Feb. 1968, FCO 8/757. This was a view reciprocated

especially in Qatar: ‘They see Saudi Arabia as Britain’s natural inheritor in this area … andtheir best defence against socialist and revolutionary subversion.’ R.H.M. Boyle toCrawford, 12 April 1968, FCO 8/11.


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51. W. Morris to FCO, Confidential, 16 April 1969, FCO 8/1181.52. Sir Denis Wright to FCO, Confidential and Guard, 10 Feb. 1967, FCO 17/358.53. Wright to FCO, Confidential, 2 Jan. 1969, FCO 17/849.54. ‘In private, the Shah regards Bahrain as a millstone round his neck and he has on the whole

in recent years tried to play the issue down … Come what may, it is most unlikely that theShah would attempt to seize Bahrain by force in any circumstances.’ Memorandum by C.D.Wiggin, 10 Feb. 1967, FCO 17/358.

55. Wright to A.R. Moore, Secret and Personal, 9 May 1968, FCO 8/28.56. Memorandum by C.D. Wiggin, 10 Feb. 1967, FCO 17/358.57. Wright to FCO, Confidential, 11 Jan. 1967, FCO 17/351.58. Memorandum by Wiggin, 18 Feb. 1967, FCO 17/358. ‘Our Middle East de Gaulle’ was the

phrase Willie Morris (Ambassador in Saudi Arabia) used to sum up the Shah. Morris toFCO, Confidential, 27 Nov. 1968, FO 1016/870.

59. Crawford to FCO, Secret, 22 July 1970, FCO 8/1309.60. Balfour-Paul to FCO, Confidential, 11 April 1970, FCO 8/1309. Balfour-Paul commented

later on Iraqi ideology and the Gulf: ‘A “progressive” revolutionary Arab government hasto have a forward policy somewhere. As I see it, therefore, the incentive to make a bidsouthwards must now be increasingly potent. Add to this their frantic resentment at Iranianambitions in the Gulf and their ideological opposition to the shaikhly régimes ripe (as theybelieve) for subversion on the Arab side, and you have a pretty heady mixture.’ Balfour-Paul to FCO, Confidential, 21 Nov. 1970, FCO 17/1539.

61. Balfour-Paul to FCO, Confidential, 11 April 1970, FCO 8/1309.62. Weir to Crawford, 8 Feb. 1968, FO 1016/754. 63. Crawford to FCO, Confidential, 27 Jan. 1968, FCO 8/33.64. Record of meetings, 25 and 26 March 1968, FCO 8/33.65. See Crawford to FCO, ‘The Union of Arab Emirates’, Confidential, 10 June 1968, FO

1016/865.66. Memorandum by Goronwy Roberts, 28 March 1968, FCO 8/33.67. Crawford to FCO, Confidential, 27 Jan. 1968, FCO 8/33.68. Record of meetings, 25 and 26 March 1968, FCO 8/33.69. Parsons to FCO, Confidential, 8 Feb. 1969, FO 1016/755.70. Arthur to Elliot, Personal and Confidential, 19 June 1969, FCO 8/934. Though a certain

sense of inevitability can be detected about the end of the British era, so also can the viewthat the aftermath would depend on the sheikhs themselves. If the possibility of a union ofthe nine (Bahrain and Qatar plus the Trucial States) proved to be impossible, would theremaining seven adopt, in Julian Bullard’s words, ‘a mood of hopeless dejection, or woulda Dunkirk, we’re-on-our-own-now spirit prevail?’ Bullard, ‘The Future of the TrucialStates’, 8 July 1969, FO 1016/876.

71. Arthur to Elliot, Personal and Confidential, 19 June 1969, FCO 8/934.72. Bullard to Weir, Confidential, 29 April 1969, FO 1016/873.73. Visiting ‘every corner of Bahrain’ to ascertain public sentiment, Signor Winspeare

Guicciardi ‘conducted the operation impeccably’. Weir to FCO, Confidential, 31 Dec. 1970,FCO 8/1638.

74. On Heath and the possible reversal of British policy, see FCO 8/979.75. Quoted in McCarthy to Crawford, Confidential and Personal, 8 May 1969, FO 1016/756.76. Minute by Home, Confidential, 13 July 1970, PREM 15/538: ‘For the Shah a satisfactory

arrangement over the islands is the nub of his future relationship both with the Trucial Statesand with the Arabs as a whole … A satisfactory arrangement over the islands is, in theShah’s words, a sine qua non for the wholehearted Iranian support for a Union.’ Byrepeating the word ‘satisfactory’ the Shah left no doubt that he meant annexation.

77. For Luce see especially Balfour-Paul, The End of Empire in the Middle East; for theevolution of his views on the Gulf, Kelly, Arabia, the Gulf and the West, 80–82.

78. Luce ‘was not a man to whom the surrender of Empire came naturally’. Sir MarrackGoulding, ‘Kuwait 1961’, typescript, Middle East Centre, St Antony’s College, Oxford.


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79. Parsons, They Say the Lion, 107ff.80. Parsons to Donal McCarthy, Confidential, 4 June 1969, FO 1016/756.81. For an important detailed survey of this phase of the British disengagement (1969–71), see

P.R.H. Wright to FCO, Confidential, 26 July 1971, FCO 8/1562.82. Luce visited Washington in January 1971. Guy Millard of the British Embassy wrote to him

afterwards that the Americans were grateful for providing ‘a comprehensive picture’ of theregion because they ‘realise that the Gulf will shortly change from a relative backwater interms of U.S. political interests to a highly charged area of the world with all sorts ofdivisive problems … There is a widespread ignorance here about what goes on in that partof the world. Even within the State Department, whose Arabists are very knowledgeable andexperienced, there are few who know the Gulf.’ Millard added that Joseph Sisco (theAssistant Secretary of State in charge of Middle Eastern affairs) ‘showed a splendidly old-fashioned enthusiasm for British frigates and troops’. Millard to Luce, Confidential, 20 Jan.1971, FCO 8/1583.

Within the US government, the clearest response to the problem of British withdrawalcame from Walt W. Rostow, the President’s Special Assisant on National Security. ‘Wedon’t want to have to replace the British’, he wrote in January 1968, ‘and we don’t want theRussians there.’ The Americans would have to work with the Shah of Iran and with KingFaisal of Saudi Arabia as well as the British to secure the continuing western position in theGulf. ‘We must count on the Shah and Faisal.’ As for the British, Rostow lamented theimpending demise of the Pax Britannica, but it was not yet a spent force. The British wouldbe in the Gulf for another three years. Before their departure in 1971, he hoped that theywould get this message: ‘don’t rock the boat any more than you already have; help us buytime for the locals to work out their own arrangements for the future.’ Rostow put forwardtwo specific aims using much the same language: ‘First, we want the British to leave theirtreaties and political relationships intact to help calm local rulers’ feelings of being deserted.Second … we think the best tack is for them to sit tight with their present relationships andlet the locals come up with their own scheme for the future.’ Memoranda by Walt W.Rostow, Secret, 31 Jan. and 6 Feb. 1968, Foreign Relations of the United States, XXI,268–69 and 278–79.

83. Boyle to Balfour-Paul (Bahrain), Confidential, 28 March 1968, FO 1016/859.84. ‘The two things about which the King felt strongly were Palestine and Aden. He kept on

saying that a situation similar to that in Aden must be avoided in the Gulf.’ Minute by A.A.Acland, 13 May 1971, FCO 8/1558.

85. Luce to Arthur, Secret and Personal, 17 Dec. 1970, FO 1016/759.86. See ‘Report on Consultations’, Secret, 2 Oct. 1970; and ‘Policy in the Persian Gulf’, Secret,

4 and 20 Nov. 1970, PREM 15/538.87. J.L. Bullard, ‘The Future of the Trucial States’, Confidential, 8 July 1969, FO 1016/876.88. See Heath’s notation on Luce’s memoranda of 4 Nov. 1970, PREM 15/538.89. Parliamentary Debates, 2 March 1971, cols.1423–24.90. FO meeting, 26 March 1968, FO 1016/955.91. Was there collusion between the British and the Shah that he would wait until the eve of

British departure before taking over the Tunbs? All of the available evidence suggests theopposite. Luce explicitly stated in his communications to the rulers as well as in his secretminutes within the FCO, both before and after the Iranian occupation, that there was noagreement. The situation probably appeared obvious that Iran had nothing to gain by goingto war with Britain. By waiting until the day before the protective treaties expired, the Shahmerely calculated that the British would still bear responsibility but could do nothing. Luceafterwards explained that ‘HMG could not reasonably be expected to defend the Islands forone day, and then to withdraw’. (Record of meeting with representatives from Kuwait,Confidential, 3 Dec. 1971, FCO 8/1777).

92. It is useful to place the Libyan response in the context of the death of Nasser in 1970:‘Qadhafi … sees himself as Nasser’s successor as leader of the Arab world.’ (Minute by R.C. Hope-Jones, 19 April 1971, FCO 39/769). In Baghdad the British Ambassador, Glen


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Balfour-Paul, shortly before he was expelled, summed up the mood in Iraq as well as theBritish dilemma: ‘Despite the genial courtesy, superficial or not, of that part of the populace… which has not yet been barbarised by misgovernment, and despite the cultivated charmof many of the better educated, the Iraqis do not laugh as readily as other Arab peoples Ihave lived with and there is always a detectable sense of suppressed rage or resentment inthe Iraqi atmosphere … Almost by definition all Governments in Iraq are bad; and certainlyby definition they govern by intimidation … The present Ba’athist model … is not, thoughnasty enough, as nasty as it is sometimes painted. And there is something to be said forkeeping hold of it for fear of finding something worse.’ Balfour-Paul to FCO, Confidential,11 Dec. 1971, FCO 17/1541.

93. Arthur to FCO, ‘The Independence of Bahrain’, Confidential, 23 Sept. 1971, FCO 8/1642.


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the british withdrawal

Documents

gulf states

british withdrawal

british forces

pace of british decolonisation

registered office

iain macleod

roger louiswhen

roger louisavailable