To the Editor of the Manchester Guardian

Sir,— As I have spent a considerable time in the Middle East, as Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in the University of Bagdad, and then as a surgeon to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in Persia, I should like to offer my comments on the Persian oil situation.

It has been quite clear for many years now that the Persians were getting restless, beginning to resent the presence of a very foreign community in their midst, and deeply resenting the air of superiority shown by foreigners who for the most part were essentially technologists and very often inferior to the Persians themselves. More, recently with the return of Persian students from oil studies abroad, in addition to their irritation with us as race there has arisen a very genuine feeling that they were being exploited as regards their oilfields.

It must have been apparent ever since the Majlis refused to ratify the agreement of 1949 that something was afoot in Persia, and yet little seems to been done to forestall a crisis which was inevitable sooner or later. [Supplemental Agreement]

When the crisis came the clumsiness of the diplomatic approach seems almost too incredible to be believed, and the culmination of the so-called negotiations seems to have reached their acme in the visit of Mr Stokes, who freely admits that he laid before them the British terms but refused to be drawn into discussions which the Persians thought to be germane to the matter, while he did not, and says further that they were not part of his brief. Having held a university chair in the Middle East, and knowing and liking the Persians, I can just imagine their contempt for such treatment.

Curiously enough, these so-called negotiations of our Government are true to form of so many dealings of our own nationals, particularly their dealings with my own profession—the usual brushing aside of difficulties as if they did not exist; the usual contempt for any suggestions as to safeguards.

It is significant that after all these negotiations, when the Persians appear to have turned down all our offers one by one, instead of facing the business and asking the Persians what they were afraid of, we seem to have gone to a certain point and then thrown our hand in.

There is nothing very secret about the Persian fears. It must be common knowledge to anyone with even a smattering of knowledge of oilfields.

Even in the U.S.A., where oil pools are very in small the extent and appear to be self-limited as a rule, the overriding fear governing all modern oil extraction from the earth is interference with your own wells, either by actually extracting the oil or with the pressure on water by means of other wells sunk in the vicinity belonging to some other company. To overcome this very elaborate control system has developed under a federation.

Whereas the possibility of interfering with other people’s wells in America is relatively remote it must be a great danger in the region of the Persian Gulf, as some of the oil pools in that region are relatively huge. In the Burzhan pool in Kuwait, one pool, I believe, has been estimated as being at least twenty miles in length. Further, there are indications that the oil in Persia may gravitate naturally towards the Gulf, possibly under the sea. As some of the newly opened fields in Persia cannot be far away from the seaboard, whatever the actual trouble may be it is quite clear that there are good reasons for the fears of the Persians, and even more good reason why they should be set at rest in some way or other.

The obvious solution of the present problem which might well be acceptable to the Persians would be to offer some sort of Federal Oil Combine to them which would include, of course, all the oil in vicinity.

Incidentally, the Kuwait Oil Company is owned, in equal shares, by the Americans and ourselves. Yours and c.,

E. HOLMES.
2 Queen Square, Lancaster.

To the Editor of the Manchester Guardian

Sir,—I do not know where Mr E. Holmes gets his information from, but it should be known that there was never any disinclination on my part to discuss any feature of the oil industry which Dr Musaddiq wished discussed. Where he gets the story from that I “refused to be drawn into discussions which the Persians thought to be germane to the matter, while he did not, and says further they were not of his brief” I have not the slightest idea. The discussions were in fact just as free and diverse as the Persian Prime Minister chose to make them. Yours and c.,

R. R. STOKES.
29 Palace Street, London
S.W. 1, October 29.

[Richard Rapier Stokes (1897-1957)]