The British Withdrawal

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The British Withdrawal from the Gulf, 1967-71

Wm. Roger Louis
Available online: 08 Sep 2010
To cite this article: Wm. Roger Louis (2003): The British Withdrawal from the Gulf, 1967-71, The Journal of Imperial and
Commonwealth History, 31:1, 83-108
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The British Withdrawal from the Gulf,

196771
Downloaded by [King's College London] at 09:20 11 June 2012
WM. R O G E R LOUI S
When the news broke on 16 January 1968 that Britain would withdraw all
forces East of Suez by the end of 1971, the public responded with an
awareness of the historic significance of the event. It is comparable in
importance, according to the New Statesman, to Mr Attlees granting of
Indian independence and the Tory governments evacuation of British
Africa.1 Critics quickly pointed out that the recall of troops from the Gulf
seemed to be an afterthought to the closing down of the great base at
Singapore, and that the cost of maintaining British forces in the Gulf, some
12 million yearly, was negligible in comparison to the immense revenues
in oil. The Gulf states met nearly half of Britains energy requirements.
There was another vein of criticism, to some the most damning, that was
expressed incisively by Iain Macleod, the former Colonial Secretary who
had accelerated the pace of British decolonisation in Africa. In the early
1960s, ironically enough, he had faced similar dilemmas with the promises
given to the white settlers in Kenya and the Rhodesias. He had been
accused of treachery. Macleod now declared that the breaking of pledges to
the rulers in the Gulf would be shameful and criminal.2 Whatever the
irony, Macleod expressed the ethical predicament in abandoning the Gulf.
The dilemma seemed all the more acute because the Gulf represented, in
the words of one of the proconsuls, the last province of the Pax
Britannica.3
Economic stringency had forced the decision, but in another sense the
retreat seemed to be yet another disastrous consequence of the events of
the previous year. In the summer of 1967 the British had been accused,
falsely, of assisting Israel in the Middle East war. In November of the
same year British troops were compelled to leave Aden. The issue of Aden
became part of a larger debate on the withdrawal of British forces East of
Suez and whether or not Britain could afford to remain a world power.
During the economic emergency in November 1967 the pound sterling
was devalued from $2.80 to $2.40. The decision to end the British
presence in the Gulf in a narrow sense was the direct consequence of the
collapse 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.83108
PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON
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T H E J O U R N A L O F I M P E R I A L A N D C O M M O N W E A LT H H I S TO RY
sense there was a crisis of disillusionment with the British Empire. I am

sure, wrote one British official in the Gulf, that most of our present
difficulties stem from the appalling lack of confidence the Saudi Arabians
and Gulf Arabs have in us, following devaluation and the decision to
withdraw, not to mention the Aden dbacle.4 The British did not plan to
leave the Gulf because they wanted to, or for reasons concerning the Gulf
itself. They left, in short, because of the decision of Harold Wilsons
Labour Government to rescue the British economy by taking severe
measures including the evacuation of all troops from South-East Asia as
well as those from the Gulf. Some of Wilsons colleagues in the Cabinet
believed they were compelled to compromise socialist principles by
introducing prescription charges into the National Health Service. They in
turn insisted on cutbacks in the defence budget. They preferred to preserve
what they could of the welfare state rather than to shore up the remaining
parts of the British Empire. They were especially reluctant to agree to
expenditures that would, in their view, continue to buoy up the oil-rich
feudal sheikhs.
In Britain the public mood in 1967 reflected ambivalence about the end
of empire and, later in the year, anxiety about devaluation. The High
Commissioner in Aden referred to the tiresome air of guilt about our
activities in Aden.5 The war in Aden, which concluded with the ignominy
of evacuation, marked the nadir in the popularity of the British Empire, but
it was by no means certain that the public or Parliament would tolerate the
decision to leave the Gulf. From 1968 onwards, Conservative leaders
including the future Prime Minister, Edward Heath, and the former Prime
Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, threatened that the course might be
reversed in the event of a Tory victory in the next election.
While taking into account the British as well as the Middle Eastern
dimension of the problem, any analysis of withdrawal from the Gulf
would not be complete without touching on the United States and the
Soviet Union. The year 1967 was a critical time in the escalation of the
war in Vietnam. According to Michael Weir, the official at the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office who played a prominent part in the withdrawal
from the Gulf: The U.S. Government continue to believe that the present
British position in the Gulf is crucial to the stability of the area.6 When
the British announced the decision to withdraw all forces East of Suez, the
Americans regarded it as a betrayal. Again, there is an element of irony
because earlier the Americans as anti-colonialists had urged the break-up
of the European colonial empires. The Americans now fully appreciated
the dangers of instability in the aftermath of British withdrawal in the Gulf
just as in South-East Asia. For the United States, British departure from
the Gulf increased the danger of a Soviet takeover. The British themselves
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BRITIS H W I THDRAWAL FROM THE GUL F
85
viewed the potential contest not only as a distinct episode in the Cold War
but also as the last instalment in the Great Game in Asia now being played
out in the civil war in the Yemen. The late 1960s and 1970s were
revolutionary times. Both the Soviet Union and Communist China
supported the Peoples Democratic Republic of Yemen, as the new postBritish Aden state was called. The revolution in Yemen might sweep
through Arabia to the Gulf itself.
Julian Amery, a Member of Parliament who represented the imperialist
wing of the Conservative Party, caught another part of the public mood by
alluding to the Roman Empire: the Legions are under orders to return.7 He
and many other critics believed the withdrawal to be a scuttle. In the
confused circumstances, no one at the time could clearly answer the
question, who would be the successor? The two major contenders were Iran
and Saudi Arabia, now confronting each other, so it seemed to some
observers, in a manner that portended a clash between Persian and Arab
civilisations.8 The traditional British aim had been to prevent the
domination of either, and to preserve the dynastic states of the Gulf by
promoting some form of union, if not a federation.
The British Protected States in the Gulf were remnants of the British Raj
in India.9 They enjoyed, according to some observers, an inflated status of
a bygone era.10 The principalities in the Gulf were, like others on the outer
reaches of India, brought under British control during the nineteenth century
(the exceptions were Kuwait and Qatar, which remained outside the British
sphere until 1899 and 1916 respectively). The senior British official in the
Gulf was the Political Resident in Bahrain, who supervised Political Agents
in Bahrain itself, Kuwait, Qatar, the Trucial States (later the United Arab
Emirates), and Oman, which in international law was an independent and
sovereign state but in effect a British protected state. The Gulf system
survived the Raj. At the time of Indian independence in 1947, protection of
oil in the Gulf replaced the defence of India as a justification for the British
presence. The Foreign Office took over the supervision of the Gulf
territories from the India Office, though the Political Resident functioned
more like a Colonial Governor. The British controlled defence and foreign
affairs. Political Agents ruled some parts of the Gulf such as the Trucial
States in the same way that district officers administered other parts of the
Empire.11 On the other hand, the degree of control in Qatar was minimal.
British paramountcy was thus uneven, but throughout the Gulf the system
of rule or control preserved the medieval or fossilised principalities, as
they were commonly called, as well as the original pattern of local politics.
Nevertheless there were significant changes. After 1947 the Foreign Office
modernised the legal and social systems by revising the legal codes and
abolishing slavery.12
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The British military and naval presence was essentially regulatory in

controlling or stabilising the region, maintaining the peace, and keeping
other powers out. The Gulf resembled a British lake. But only in 1949 a
late development in Britains imperial history did the term Protected
States come into official usage. In Glen Balfour-Pauls words, it was a
Foreign Office designation for an otherwise inexplicable status describing a
configuration of territories that were, even by Imperial Britains standards,
uniquely curious.13 The very titles Resident and Political Agent evoked
the antiquated usage of the Government of India.
The public controversy on the withdrawal resounded with denunciations
that the breach of faith with the rulers of the Gulf states was a betrayal no
less egregious than the abrogation of the treaties with the Indian princes in
1947. To anticipate a major point in connection with the transfer of power
in India in 1947, the setting of a deadline the end of 1971 helped to
determine the outcome, as it had in India a quarter of a century earlier.
Geoffrey Arthur, who served as the Under-Secretary supervising Middle
Eastern affairs in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and in 1970
became the last Political Resident, once commented that more progress was
made in the two years after 1967 than the British had achieved in the
twenty two preceding years since World War Two.14
What sort of progress did the British have in mind? Was it towards a
federation or some more modest type of unity? Federations were the grand
design of the 1950s and 1960s, in the Caribbean and South-East Asia as well
as in Africa and the Middle East. The break-up of the West Indies Federation
in 1962 demonstrated that the trend probably would be towards fragmentation
and the birth of tiny states in the Commonwealth as well as in the United
Nations. Among the British Protected States of the Gulf, only Bahrain and
perhaps Qatar held out much hope as viable units, and even they represented
the type of micro-state, as the phenomenon later became known, that
everyone wanted to avoid. There was little hope for effective unity, above all
because the spectre of Aden hovered over the Gulf.15 In view of the fate of
Adens federation, could one reasonably expect a similar scheme to succeed?
Sir Kennedy Trevaskis, the former High Commissioner in Aden and
mastermind behind the plans for federating the port of Aden with the
sheikhdoms in the hinterland, visited the Gulf in 1968. According to Julian
Bullard, the Political Agent in Dubai, Trevaskis drew a gloomy conclusion:
Although the personalities [in the Gulf] were different, the problems
were the same. The Southern Arabian Federation had failed, and if it
had not been for pressure by the British Government it would never
even have got off the ground. Trevaskis did not conceal his scepticism
about the future 16
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In Bahrain, Anthony Parsons, the Political Agent, reported that the

Bahrainis regarded any type of unity among the sheikhdoms as a stock
joke, though this generalisation demanded a qualification. Among the
younger generation in Bahrain, those below the age of 35, there was a
genuine emotional predilection for Arab unity in general and for the
unification of the Gulf States.17 The British were hardly optimistic, nor did
they set their sights too high. If the exacting demands of a federation proved
impossible, 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 is
better than complete chaos.18
From 1967 onwards there were no illusions about the immensity of the
task in bringing unity among the nine or so rulers of the Gulf. In Qatar the
Political Agent compared the task ahead with the heros quest in Pilgrims
Progress: the path to unanimity through the swamps, jungles and thickets
of temptation, jealousy, and greed will make the Pilgrims Progress look like
a Sunday afternoon ramble of happiness and sunshine.19
I
The announcement of abrupt departure seemed all the more glaring since
only two months previously the British had given assurances that their
presence would continue until political and security arrangements could be
made for a post-British era. In November 1967 Goronwy Roberts, the
Minister of State in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, had visited the
Gulf. With unfailing canniness Harold Wilson had shifted Roberts from the
Welsh Office to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office because there were
too many senior ministers from North Wales cluttering the Welsh Office. A
kindly man, Roberts was out of his depth, but he was sent to the Middle East
following a major discussion in Whitehall on the future of the British
position in the Gulf. He reassured the Rulers and the Shah of Iran that
rumours of an impending British departure were unfounded and that Britain
would, in Robertss words, remain in the Gulf so long as was necessary and
desirable to ensure the peace and stability of the area.20 Roberts left no
doubt at all: he was explicit that there was no thought of withdrawal in our
minds.21
The Rulers had been greatly relieved to learn that the British had no
intention of leaving without making arrangements for their security. British
forces would continue to provide the peaceful conditions necessary for
economic development. The axe did not fall. But no sooner had the Rulers
and the Political Agents taken in this good news than they learned that
Roberts would again visit the region in January 1968, this time with the
unhappy 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 he

return to the Gulf to convey the bad news, though he himself did not seem
to recognise the credibility gap created in the minds of the Rulers by the
reversal.22 16 January 1968 the day of the public announcement lived
then and forever after in Gulf history as an infamous date. The Middle East
hands at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office referred to the decision as
the double-cross. Sir Stewart Crawford, the penultimate Political Resident
in the Gulf (196670), reported that the Rulers felt betrayed.23 So also did at
least one of the Political Agents. Anthony Parsons in Bahrain wrote
afterwards:
The deed was done and that was that. But I was deeply troubled about
my personal position and slept little that night How could I now
confront this volte-face and retain my own honour? I realized that, if
I were to resign, this act would change nothing and would not create
even a ripple on the surface of events. But these were not reasons for
failing to do the right thing.24
Parsons stayed on because the Ruler himself urged him not to quit. But
Parsons did so with strong feelings about the unethical behaviour of the
British government. Not only would Britains military presence be
terminated but also the protective treaties.
The urgency of the situation led to comprehensive, intense discussions
within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on how best to prepare for
the British departure in view of the uncertainty of still more defence cuts
and the possibility that the British Army might be drawn into a major
operation in Northern Ireland.25 In any event the withdrawal would be a
complex process varying from principality to principality. The British had
to deal immediately with the tense relations between Bahrain and Qatar,
and the relations between these two important sheikhdoms and what were
then known as the Trucial States (the word Trucial derived from the
treaty signed in 1854 by the British and ruling sheikhs who agreed to a
perpetual maritime truce). The Trucial States which became known as
the United Arab Emirates were Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and the five northern
or small Trucial States of Ajman, Sharjah, Um al Qaiwain, Fujairah, and
Ras al Khaimah. Of these, the British were mostly concerned with Abu
Dhabi and Dubai because of oil. The rest were impoverished and slight in
population as well as resources, but significant because they could cause
trouble by embracing radical Arab nationalism and perhaps block the
proposed union.
The British connection with Bahrain and what was still called the
steel 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 Resident
and the Political Agent. It was a miniature bastion for the Royal Navy. The
houses of British expatriates and service personnel in Manamah, the
capital, bore names such as Curzon, Piccadilly, and Britannia.27 British
rule in Bahrain was more far-reaching than in any other Gulf state, in part
because of the jurisdiction, inherited from the Raj, over the large foreign
population of workers in the oil fields and in virtually all other sectors of
the economy. Bahrain had developed as the first oil-producing state in the
Gulf. Oil began to flow in 1931, but the reserves proved to be minor
compared to those in Kuwait and elsewhere. The ruling family, the Al
Khalifah, in the 1950s had faced radical or militant demands for reform,
but nationalist protest had, on the whole, been effectively dealt with, in the
view of the British Resident, by first class British leadership.28 When
Selwyn Lloyd, the Foreign Secretary in 1956, visited Bahrain shortly
before the Suez crisis, he encountered violent denunciation, the event
itself reflecting the turbulence in a society that included Iranians, Indians,
Palestinians, and others who mainly worked in the oil fields. The currents
of Arab nationalism ran deep, but so also did the undertow of cultural and
religious affinity with Shia Iran. We employ a surprising number of
Arabs who speak Arabic with a Persian accent, wrote the Resident in
Bahrain, and read magazines from Tehran, not Cairo.29 But there could
be no doubt about the Arab character of the population as a whole.
According to Michael Weir, whose writings often reflected an awareness
of problems of the British Empire in other parts of the world: Bahrain is
no Cyprus: it is demonstrably an Arab country.30
The Resident judged that Bahrain was the most advanced of the
Protected States but also the most complex. He drew a comparison with
Qatar:
By Gulf standards Bahrain is relatively sophisticated with a developed
Government and educated population; on the other hand it is poor in
oil resources
Qatar, far less sophisticated, only recently embarked on modern
education, more dominated by its ruling family than is Bahrain, has
nevertheless far greater oil resources and wealth and a clearer idea of
the policy to follow The Al Khalifah of Bahrain and the Al Thani
of Qatar are . . . still, despite our efforts to bring them together, like
oil and water 31
The British accurately sensed that Bahrain marched out of step with most of
the other Protected States and would probably move towards separate
independence rather than inclusion in any possible union.
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In view of the danger of general upheaval in Bahrain, and the

possibility of subversion from Egypt and other radical Arab states, the
chances of inclusion in a union were problematical above all because Iran
claimed Bahrain as a lost province. Until Irans territorial claims to Bahrain
and other minor islands could be resolved, the future of the plan for unity
would be in doubt.32 Iran held an implicit veto over the union, or at least
considerable influence, because none of the sheikhdoms could afford to be
on bad terms with the major power in the region. If the union were to come
into being, it would need Irans acquiescence if not active support.
In contrast with Bahrain, Qatar represented the British Empire in one of
its most minuscule proportions. But the economic stakes were large, as they
were in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. By the 1960s Qatar produced half the
amount of oil of neighbouring Abu Dhabi and could rank as among the
wealthiest states per capita in the world. Geoffrey Arthur once wrote of
Qatar: It is the least attractive of the Gulf States, its Rulers are the least
pleasant and least responsive to British pressures. They are also the most
likely to last, for they are tough, prolific, united, and above all capable of
identifying, and ruthless in pursuing, their own interests.33
In wealth and prosperity, Abu Dhabi and Dubai even in British times
belonged to a class of their own. The discovery of oil in Abu Dhabi in 1958
led to a growth rate in the 1960s four times that of Kuwait and to a position
of unquestioned prominence in the region. Dubai developed essentially as a
city-state and eventually possessed the largest dry dock in the world. It
became one of the leading centres of commerce in the Gulf, regarded by
some contemporaries as having the potential of another Hong Kong. But
Abu Dhabi and Dubai had opposite political attractions within the larger
Arab world. Sheikh Rashid of Dubai thought that the natural ally of the Gulf
states was Saudi Arabia.34 Sheikh Zaid of Abu Dhabi believed pragmatically
that Gamal Abdel Nassers Egypt not only should be recognised as the
leader of revolutionary Arab nationalism but should be represented in the
Gulf as part of the new order post-1968.35 The idea of Egypt having a formal
presence violated the basic British premise to keep Nasser out of the
Gulf.36
The fundamental or traditional British assumption on excluding Egypt
needed to be reassessed. Should it not now be assumed that Britains future
in the larger reaches of the Middle East depended on better relations with
Egypt? One Foreign Office official, D.J. Speares, wrote in July 1968: I am
quite convinced that our over-all interests in the Middle East are likely to be
furthered by cultivating and maintaining good relations with Egypt
rather than by the policies we followed in the past.37 What then to make of
the overtures by some of the Gulf states to Egypt? The question placed those
pondering 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 states
formed quasi-alliances or, to put it no higher, informal contacts, not only
among themselves but with others beyond the Gulf in the pursuit of local
aims: Qatar with Saudi Arabia, Dubai with Iran, Abu Dhabi and some of the
lesser Sheikhdoms with Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries.39 These
were combinations or inclinations that shifted from issue to issue and
sometimes from month to month, but throughout the Gulf itself the popular
pro-Nasser or pan-Arab nationalist sentiment continued to trouble the
British. It became clear only gradually that Nassers eclipse created a more
favourable climate for British withdrawal. According to a Foreign Office
minute on the events of 1967: The June war was the turning point we
would never have had a chance of making an orderly withdrawal from the
Gulf nor would the Sheikhs have had a chance of survival if the
revolutionary Arabs had not been completely deflated by the results of the
June war.40
To the north, in the richest of the Gulf states, Kuwait faced everincreasing pressures from the radical Arab world, above all from Nassers
Egypt, to share its wealth for development in the Middle East rather than for
investment purposes in London. In 1961 Kuwait had become independent.41
But Iraq regarded Kuwait as an Iraqi province and immediately threatened
to invade the country. The British intervened to establish once and for all
that Kuwait must be respected as a sovereign state with no connection to
Iraq, though, as will be seen, Iraqi ambitions again preoccupied the British
before their departure from the Gulf as did the possibility of revolution in
Kuwait.42
The intervention in Kuwait in 1961 left a lingering anti-British
sentiment. Kuwait also had tense relations with its neighbours. The
Kuwaitis saw themselves at the vortex of a troubled region. The British
Ambassador, Sir Sam Falle, wrote in 1970, on the eve of withdrawal from
the Gulf:
Kuwait feels threatened in general terms by progressive Arab
Socialism and in specific terms by its manifestations in neighbouring
States Iraqi irredentism, pressure on the Sultan of Muscat inspired
from Aden, discontent and subversion in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain
Again, there is fear of the Iranian empire and an arrogant Persian
domination of the area. The insoluble and interminable ArabIsrael
conflict continues to disturb even the placid waters of the Gulf The
rich Kuwaitis wonder what to do.43
The foreign population in Kuwait outnumbered the native Kuwaitis. There
were not only Indians and Iranians but also Palestinians, Iraqis, Syrians,
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Lebanese, Egyptians, and others from the lower Gulf. Without them the
State would collapse.44 Kuwait would probably not play a significant part
in bringing about a union among the principalities in the lower Gulf, in part
because of the historical evolution of the Gulf states: the Kuwaitis rightly
or wrongly are disliked by the Rulers of the Southern States as arrogant and
presumptuous upstarts.45
To the far south, the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman was the odd state
out, not merely because of its geographical position but because it would
need about 600 years to catch up with the other Gulf states.46 Embroiled in
civil war, and in any event self-absorbed, Oman played only a marginal part
in the debate about the union of the Gulf states. From 1965 the British
intervened decisively in the Dhofar rebellion. The Dhofar region was
adjacent to the Aden Protectorate, as the territory was then known. By the
mid-1960s the Yemen civil war engulfed Dhofar described by the
Resident in the Gulf as the best guerilla country in the Middle East [where]
the Sultans Armed Forces are fighting communist gangs supplied from
Aden [and who are] controlled by men dedicated to change of the most
violent and radical kind, men who forbid prayer and whose reading, if they
read at all, is not the Koran but the Thoughts of Chairman Mao.47 Part of
the aim of the revolutionary movement was to destroy all of the dynastic
states of the Gulf. The civil war had not yet worked its way to a conclusion
by the time of the British withdrawal from the Gulf in 1971, but in the
previous year the British had assisted in the overthrow of Omans ruler, the
Sultan bin Taimur who in the British view was a dangerous anachronism
and his replacement by his son, the present ruler of Oman, Qaboos bin
Said, who had been educated at Sandhurst and had served in the British
Army. For our purposes, the significance of the Sultanate of Muscat and
Oman is that it held the line against the Yemeni revolution during the period
of 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 this
posture often seemed passive rather than active. They needed to keep Saudi
Arabia reassured that their departure would not create a sort of Palestine in
the Gulf. They hoped that Iran would not seize the disputed islands until
after they had left. They viewed the possibility of Iraqi expansion as
relatively dormant, but it nevertheless caused concern.
From the vantage point of Saudi Arabia, the decision to leave the Gulf
reinforced 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 who
would endanger the security of his country and of its dynasty.48 Having
watched the British leave Aden under humiliating circumstances, and
believing that their will to rule had cracked, King Faisal wondered whether
the Gulf might now suffer the same fate. Might there be a domino effect
from Aden to the Gulf with the toppling of one principality after the next?
In responding to such questions, the Resident believed that the British
position in the Gulf differed radically from the circumstances of British
colonial rule in Aden. Sir Stewart Crawford, usually restrained and
unemotional, wrote with unusual passion during the actual withdrawal from
Aden in late 1967:
In the Gulf we do not have, as we have had in Aden, to constitute

a new government, the Rulers are all firmly in their saddles and can
be counted on to show much more sense, guts and leadership than the
Aden Amirs Instead of a Yemen next door there is a reasonably
solid and pretty inert Saudi Arabia.49
Such optimistic views, expressed without the insult about being inert, failed
to make an impression on the Saudis. But the calculation that Saudi Arabia
would remain inert had a bearing on the outcome.
Saudi Arabia supported the effort to create a union, so the British
believed, only because the sheikhdoms might otherwise fall prey to Iran.
Indeed the British sensed that, if the union succeeded, the Saudis might be
willing silently to forget but not forgive the long-standing dispute over the
Buraimi 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 states
were emotionally as well as strategically entangled. This estimate on
Buraimi proved to be far too optimistic. The Saudis remained adamant on
claims to the oasis, and they were also consistent in their outlook on the
Gulf. According to King Faisal, the Gulf sheikhdoms are historically,
geographically and politically Saudi Arabias preserve and no one elses.50
The British themselves were sceptical of these far-reaching Saudi claims to
the region: Saudi ignorance of the people and territories on their borders
and the inadequacies of their governmental machinery and personnel make
it unlikely that they can quickly assume any major role in the Gulf
territories, and perhaps risky for them to attempt it because of pan-Arab
nationalism.51
Revolutionary Arab nationalism posed a threat not only to the King of
Saudi 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 Shahs
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eyes, still the only real bulwark against Nasserite expansion.52 The decision
to withdraw came as a shock to the Shah no less than to King Faisal, though
the British had tried to prepare the way. The King no less than the Shah
believed the British to be acting not in their own interest, indeed irrationally.
Both regarded the Sheikhdoms in the Gulf as British puppets. Each had
suspicions of British motives, though the Saudi view of British abdication
reflected a general Arab anxiety that the British were creating another
Palestine in the Gulf by supporting Irans bid for mastery of the region.
Just as the British denied giving aid and comfort to Israel, so they also
vigorously rejected charges of collaboration with Iran, especially in the case
of Bahrain. The British believed that the Shah had no actual ambition to
take over Bahrain but, like any ancient claim, it could not be easily
repudiated. He does not wish to go down in history as the man who lightly
abandoned his countrys 14th Province.53 But he intended, in one way or
another, to free himself, in his own words, from the Bahrainian millstone.54
In contrast, there were other territorial claims that the Shah would
relentlessly pursue. He aimed to annex the islands called the Tunbs in the
narrow 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 side
that eventually became known as the farthest Iranian outpost in the Gulf. Sir
Denis Wright commented: I am quite certain that the Iranians will walk into
the 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 might
as well go the whole hog and walk into Abu Musa as well.55 Virtually all
Iranian oil exports passed through the Straits and it was thus understandable
that the Shah attached strategic significance to the Greater and Lesser
Tunbs.
In a larger sense, according to the British Embassy staff in Tehran, the
Shah has never taken his eyes off Nasser. Such was the Shahs
preoccupation with Nasser that it resembled a fixation:
His obsessive hatred of Nasser has grown steadily since the
downfall of the Nuri rgime in Iraq in 1958. This the Shah
transliterates 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, and
believed that the collapse in Aden was the beginning of the end for the
British in the Gulf. The British were opting out. The Shah was in the
struggle to the end. The disputed islands were merely part of an overall
battlefield. What the Shah is really concerned with is who will control the
Gulf 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 relatively
late in the 196871 period, it was nevertheless significant because it
represented the response of revolutionary Arab socialism and with it,
perhaps, the support of the Soviet Union. There was also the specific
territorial claim. Just as Iran regarded Bahrain as a lost province, so did Iraq
view Kuwait as part of Iraq proper. Through intelligence sources the British
detected renewed Iraqi ambitions towards Kuwait. And Iraqi influence
extended far beyond the northern Gulf. Iraq also lent assistance to the rebels
in the Dhofar province of Oman. The flashpoint in the Gulf itself might well
be Bahrain: There is a natural tendency for the Shia who form 50% of
Bahrains population to look towards Iraq.59 In sum, the Iraqis aspired to no
less than a dominant position in the Arab Gulf by promoting a revolution
against the dynastic states. In so doing they would not only advance the
revolutionary socialist cause but also preserve the Gulf against Iranian
invaders. According to the Ambassador in Baghdad, Glen Balfour-Paul, the
problem had an obsessive quality to it:
For the Iraqis, as for many other Arabs, safeguarding the Arabism of
the Gulf means primarily the exclusion of Iranian influence from its
western shores. But because of the rivalry, hostility and mistrust
existing for other reasons between Iraq and Iran, the exclusion of
Iranian influence takes on for the Iraqis a significance which it does
not have for other interested Arab parties For the Iraqis, who see
an 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 for
Palestine, part and parcel of the single, all-embracing dogma of Arab
revolution.60
Iraqi ambitions themselves might not have seemed so alarming had it not
been for the context of the Cold War: There can scarcely be any doubt that
the Soviet Union would welcome the emergence of revolutionary rgimes
in the oil States of the Gulf.61
III
In view of the obstacles to unity of the Gulf states, one is reminded of the
reference to Pilgrims Progress. Yet in the end the British left the Gulf with
the political system of the dynastic states intact and the seven former Trucial
States united in a federal structure known today as the United Arab
Emirates. 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 has
endured to the present. How then did the British manage to do it? What were
the step-by-step measures taken from the time of the shock of the
announcement that Britain would depart to the time of the formation of the
federal union of the Emirates in late 1971? Until very late in the day, it
appeared that the Iranian claims to the disputed islands would prevent the
emergence of a federation. Just as significant, the odds seemed to be
overwhelmingly against the sheikhs themselves coming to an agreement on
a federal constitution. On the British side, in January 1968 there was
collective dismay at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and among the
Political Agents in the Gulf. But after British officials recovered from initial
consternation, 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 to
do the utmost in the time available.62
After 16 January, the rulers of the Gulf feared, not without reason, that
the British would sell them down the river. The Political Resident reported
on the frantic exchanges between the Sheikhs on how best to defend
themselves: All sorts of wild and impractical ideas are being ventilated.63
The first tangible step occurred in February 1968 when the Rulers of Abu
Dhabi and Dubai abruptly agreed to unite and, without further consultation,
invited the other rulers to join them. This move was greeted with fury by
the ruler of Qatar.64 Seizing a short-lived initiative, the Ruler of Qatar
secured the agreement of all of the nine protected states to create, in
principle, a union. This was known as the Dubai Agreement.65 It marked a
significant step towards unity, though there appeared to be no way of
reconciling the ancient animosities of Qatar and Bahrain. The British
supported the idea of a loose confederation that would include both Qatar
and Bahrain plus the seven Trucial States.66 The onus of failure would thus
fall on the states refusing to join or, conversely, the success would depend
on those willing to combine, perhaps in a tighter union of Abu Dhabi,
Dubai, and the lesser five northern sheikhdoms. The Rulers of the five
small and impecunious Northern Trucial States, the Political Resident
reported, are in complete confusion and are looking in all directions to see
where they can run for cover.67 The Ruler of Ras el Khaimah was especially
vulnerable because he exercised jurisdiction over the island of Abu Musa
one of the disputed islands claimed by Iran. Now that the British had
declared their intention to leave the Gulf, when would Iran step in to occupy
Abu Musa and the two Tunbs? If Iran seized the islands, the Shah and the
British would be confronted with a united hostile [Arab] front.68 The
move might precipitate a Saudi pre-emptive strike against Buraimi and thus
upset 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 as

complicated and daunting as the British had anticipated.
Whatever the perils of Iran or Saudi Arabia, or of the sheikhs failing to
come to an agreement, there was also the hazard of the leaders of the
Conservative Party attempting to reverse course and retain Britains military
presence in the Gulf beyond 1971 thus destroying the degree of unity that
the Political Agents had been able to achieve against considerable odds. In
1968 the leader of the Conservative Party, Edward Heath, challenged the
Labour governments decision to withdraw all troops east of Suez. He
continued his attack, with an increasing emphasis on the Gulf, to the time of
the election in the summer of 1970. This created a problem for those now
planning an orderly withdrawal. Whatever qualms one might have had
personally Anthony Parsons for example believing that the British
government had betrayed its trust a reversal might be even worse. Even if
the British government decided to stay on, would the British now be
welcomed by the rulers of the Gulf? Parsons wrote about Bahrain in a
comment that applied to other Gulf states as well: Virtually everyone
considered that the decision could not be reversed and that an attempt to do
so might precipitate an Aden situation here.69
No one of course could anticipate what a Conservative government
might actually do, or what might take place in the meantime. The Middle
East experts however were sceptical to a man that the course could be
reversed to pre-16 January 1968. Though the Sheikhs under the initial shock
had proclaimed themselves willing to do virtually anything to extend the
British presence, including themselves paying for the upkeep of British
troops, the British detected a subtle change of attitude. Whatever the future
might hold, things would never again be the same after 16 January. In one
way or another the Sheikhs would have to rely on their own devices. On the
British side, the decision to withdraw had merely recognised, in Geoffrey
Arthurs words, the writing on the wall. The British system in the Gulf
was already an anachronism.70 While still at the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office, Arthur believed that neither Gulf nationalists nor
the British public, on the whole, realistically would expect the British to
stay on: Whereas surprisingly few elements in the Gulf, even among
nationalists, welcomed our policy to withdraw, it is unlikely that any
substantial body of opinion in the Gulf or around it would feel that the clock
can now be turned back.71 Once a sweeping decision of this magnitude had
been made, it would be virtually impossible to reverse it. And it was
inevitable that dormant claims would be renewed at the same time that Iran,
Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia all now demanded Britains departure.
In the larger period 196771 there were two turning points, both midway through the chronological sequence. One had to do with
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developments in the Gulf itself, the other with British politics. The first
was the resolution of the claim to Bahrain by Iran in May 1970. Until this
cloud over Bahrains future could be dissipated, no substantial progress
could be made because none of the Gulf states could afford to antagonise
Iran. In the case of Bahrain itself there were internal ethnic and religious
reasons why it was necessary to remain on as good terms as possible with
Iran. From the beginning, soon after the announcement by the British that
they would leave, all nine of the Gulf states the larger grouping
including Bahrain and eventually even Qatar in February 1968 had
agreed to study the feasibility of a union. As has been mentioned, this was
known as the Dubai agreement and it marked the beginning of detailed
studies 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 in
which the talks have been conducted: mostly in whispers, on sofas, in odd
corners with messengers trotting from one little group to another.72
But until May 1970 it appeared that little progress was being made
because the political issue of Bahrain remained unsettled and with it the
nature and numbers of the union, indeed its very existence.
The British themselves appeared to be playing an essentially passive part
because they too needed the goodwill of the Shah to make the union a
success. They believed that the Shah would accept a face-saving device to
resolve the issue of Bahrain (but would prove to be unyielding on the other
issue of the small islands). Yet no one could come up with a formula for
Bahrain until the idea was put forward that the United Nations might come
to the rescue. In Iran, Sir Denis Wright played a crucial part in devising this
formula by suggesting that the Iranians themselves might turn to the United
Nations to determine the actual sentiment of the Bahrainis. Wright relied on
the principle that extraordinary things can be accomplished if someone else
takes credit for them. This was an intricate task, but it worked. In late March
1970 a four-man UN mission under an Italian named Winspeare Guicciardi,
who by all accounts did a brilliant job, established that virtually all
Bahrainis were unanimous in wanting an independent Arab state.73 On 9
May the Security Council unanimously endorsed the report and Iran
formally abandoned its claim to Bahrain. Bahrain was now on its way to
becoming a member of the United Nations. Qatar shortly afterwards also
declared the intention to become an independent state and to apply for UN
membership. Qatars population of 200,000 met the minimal requirement
for UN membership. The resolution of the Bahrain problem broke the
deadlock 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 the
Conservative Party in the summer of 1970. The Prime Minister, Edward
Heath, had been insistent that the Labour government had broken pledges
and abandoned its responsibilities.74 He had himself visited the Gulf in
1969 and had repeatedly stated that the British must regain their nerve and
restore Britains good name. At one point he said to Geoffrey Arthur:
were going to change policy and the F.O. should be working out how to
do it.75 Heaths robust and consistent attitude, however, was not entirely
shared by his colleagues. Sir Alec Douglas-Home, who had been the
previous Tory Prime Minister, now returned to office as Foreign Secretary.
Home entirely sympathised with Heaths attitude but he was also realistic.
He took the view that he and his colleagues had inherited a situation not
of their own making. But he resisted the choice, on the one hand, as he
saw it, of Labours aim of cutting loose or, on the other, of reversing and
becoming, 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 the
Gulf, to move forward towards union of the seven Trucial States without
Bahrain and Qatar, and to retain rather than break the military and
economic links. The British military presence would become less visible
by the removal of land forces but troops would still be available by naval
and air units. Home also took a relatively open-minded view of the
disputed islands in the Gulf. Shortly after assuming office, he and Denis
Wright met with the Shah in Brussels. This was a crucial meeting. So
adamant was the Shah, Home concluded, that the British would simply
have to hope that Iran would not seize the islands before the British
departure.76 Otherwise Britain would find itself at war with Iran because
of the protective treaties. Home hoped to avoid a direct conflict by
persuading the Iranians at least to wait until the British departure before
taking over the islands. He pitched his views on the Gulf in such a way as
to win the Prime Ministers acquiescence. But the main reason why the
return of the Tories marked a watershed was because Home also
persuaded Heath to summon Sir William Luce out of retirement to try to
resolve the outstanding issues with Iran and Saudi Arabia and to press
forward towards union.
IV
Luce was one of the last great Proconsuls.77 He had a legendary reputation
in the Sudan Political Service, where he began his career, and as Governor
of Aden and later as Political Resident in the Gulf. In a sense he is a
controversial historical figure because in the 1960s he seemed to be a
throwback 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, and
who believed the British intervention to be a mistake, viewed him as a
paternalistic, imperial personality whose time had past. These critics
include (Sir) Marrack Goulding, who was in Kuwait at the time.78 Others
such as Anthony Parsons, who were equally as anti-Empire, found him to
be a forward-looking, pragmatic, and sympathetic personality. Parsons
records 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 difficult
and complicated situation.79 There is evidence in the Gulf Residency
archives that Luces reappearance was welcomed among the Political
Agents and that they themselves had pressed for his appointment. Parsons
himself wrote in 1969 that he favoured enlisting the services of Bill Luce
as a sort of father confessor and progress chaser.80 And there was another
appointment of significance. Sir Geoffrey Arthur, who had served as
Ambassador in Kuwait and then as Middle Eastern Under-Secretary at
the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, now in the summer of 1970
became the last Political Resident in the Gulf. This was an exceptionally
strong team.
Luce set out first and foremost to create a union of Bahrain, Qatar, and
the seven Trucial States, even though Bahrain and Qatar would probably
pursue separate paths to independence.81 He knew that he could advise and
cajole but had no authority to compel. But he used his powers of persuasion
to the utmost. Luce could give the impression to Arabs and others including
the Americans that he was taking them entirely into his confidence while
giving 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 in
Pilgrims Progress making his way through sloughs of jealousy and greed.
The Political Agent who made that comment, Ranald Boyle, previously in
the Sudan Political Service, wrote that the whole exercise seems to me
to be very Arab. Everyone is trying to promote his own interest, and
generating a tremendous amount of heat in the process.83 What Luce did
was patiently to reason with each of the rulers, suggesting in a way
reminiscent of Benjamin Franklin during the American revolution, that it
was in their own interest to hang together because if not they would all hang
separately. In the autumn and winter of 197071 the detailed discussions on
constitutional and other matters among the rulers and the Political Agents
now began to pay off.
Luce was well placed with both the Shah, whose support he needed if
there was going to be any form of union at all, and King Faisal, who was
indispensable to the project because both Bahrain and Qatar required Saudi
backing 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 thus
was not tarred with the brush, in Saudi eyes, of the Aden scuttle. To King
Faisal, the paramount goal was to avoid another Aden, indeed another
Palestine.84 But though Luce was on good terms with both King Faisal and
the Shah, there were certain things that were intractable. These included the
Saudi claim to the Buraimi oasis and Irans claim to the disputed islands in
the Gulf, which the British insisted belonged to the rulers of Ras al Khaimah
and Sharjah. Luce hoped that the Saudis would simply remain silent on the
issue of the historic Buraimi dispute. At one point, far from staying passive,
the Saudis actually increased their claims but otherwise the British
calculation that the Saudis would remain inert proved to be accurate. The
disputed islands were another matter. Luce wrote that the British had to
avoid giving the Arabs the impression of a sell out of the islands, or even
one of the islands to Iran because of the very serious effects indeed on our
relations with the Arabs generally.85 The islands of Abu Musa and the
Tunbs were regarded as Arab territory, especially by Iraq but also by radical
Arab states as far away as Libya. The takeover by Iran would be the
surrender of Arab land.
Luce systematically studied the problem and submitted two
complementary reports that included best and worst case scenarios but also
stated 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 the
formation of a union of the seven Trucial States. The groundwork had been
laid about a year before Luces appointment in a seminal study by Julian
Bullard, the Political Agent in Dubai. Bullard held that a union of the seven
Trucial States without Qatar and Bahrain would be a much more logical
proposition.
It is a much more modest objective, and in some ways a more
plausible one. The Seven are geographically contiguous, and they
already possess certain elements of a unitary structure Movement
of persons and goods from state to state is relatively free, and the only
important gap in the main road system, between Abu Dhabi and
Dubai, 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 and
tribal background are intermingled. All this is true of the Seven, but
not the Eight or Nine.87
The defence force in the Trucial States, the Trucial Scouts, 1,700 men
strong, would form the army of the new state. The British would withdraw
military units but would enter into defence arrangements that would
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provide naval and air assistance, the training of new military and
police units, and contract service by British military and police officers.
The British presence would thus become more invisible but it would still
be there.
On one point Luce came into conflict with the Prime Minister.
Heath followed these matters with a far greater grasp of detail than
had Harold Wilson, and Heath disagreed with Luce that all land forces
should be withdrawn.88 Heath believed along with Julian Amery and
others of the imperialist wing of the Conservative Party that Britain could
continue to station battalions and hold enclaves regardless of world
opinion. But in this respect Heath was like Churchill and did not override
his military and political advisers. The Cabinet decided that the
withdrawal would take place by 1 December 1971. Heath defended the
decision in the House of Commons in March.89 The Luce plan of
withdrawal survived intact and the United Arab Emirates came into
existence in December 1971 on target with the exception of one of the
northern sheikhdoms, Ras el Khaimah, that joined shortly afterwards in
the next year.
There was a dramatic prelude to independence. Sir Denis Wright
had been consistently pessimistic about the disputed islands. He had
reiterated 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 British
departed on schedule on 1 December. The day before, Iran seized the
disputed islands.91 The Shah thus managed to deflect Arab anger towards
the British in the last day of British sway. Iraq broke off relations with
Britain, and Colonel Qadaffi appropriated the holdings of British
Petroleum in Libya.92 But the United Arab Emirates survived. It all turned
out, as Sir Geoffrey Arthur commented, exactly as the British had hoped
all along but could hardly dare to believe would happen: a new state on
good terms with Britain, no sharp breaks or ruptures, and with the new
union still informally within the British imperial system.93
University of Texas, Austin
St Antonys College, Oxford
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103
NOTES
This article is based on the Antonius Lecture at St Antonys College, Oxford, in June 2002. I
thank the Warden and Fellows for allowing me to publish it in its present form. It draws on certain
passages 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 Gulf
are: J.B. Kelly, Arabia, the Gulf and the West (New York, 1980); Glen Balfour-Paul, The
End of Empire in the Middle East: Britains Relinquishment of Power in Her Last Three
Arab Dependencies (Cambridge, 1991); and Rosemarie Said Zahlan, The Making of the
Modern 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 for
portraying the controversial nature of the debate in Britain at the time: The Decision to
Withdraw from the Gulf, Political Quarterly, 39, 3 (JulySept. 1968); and, in the same
journal, Britain and the Indian Ocean, 42, 3 (JulySept. 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 able
to take on your commitments when you left, as we did in Greece, I must say at once that
there 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,
19641968, XII, 56566.
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 it
regards as its own moat and mistrusts what the people on the other side are up to. The
Times, 17 Aug. 1968.
9. See Robert J. Blyth, Britain versus India in the Persian Gulf: The Struggle for Political Control,
c.192848, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 28, 1 (Jan. 2000), 90111.
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 bloodmoney, examines boundaries, manumits slaves But above all he must travel: in a long
and 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 in
a 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 contradiction
described in 1959 that remained true a decade later: If we are to force the pace it will mean
the appearance, if not the fact, of greater interference in internal affairs and the assumption
of increased responsibility at a time when we are trying to build up the self-reliance of the
Gulf States and actively encouraging rulers to widen the scope of their independence. There
is, therefore, a certain basic contradiction which will tend to stultify any decisions of policy
we 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
311ich04.qxd
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13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
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Stewart Crawford to FCO, The Modernisation of Her Majestys Governments Relations
with the Protected Gulf States, Confidential, 5 Jan. 1968, FO 1016/885: I believe that our
primary aim should be to improve the efficiency of the States Administrations Progress
is still patchy.
Balfour-Paul, The End of Empire in the Middle East, 10102.
Geoffrey Arthur to T.A.K. Elliot (Washington), Personal and Confidential, 19 June 1969,
FCO 8/934.
The fate of the West Indies Federation and the Federation in South Arabia was fresh in our
minds. Anthony Parsons, They Say the Lion: Britains Legacy to the Arabs: A Personal
Memoir (London, 1986), 121. Michael Weir commented: clearly there can be no question
in the time we have left of trying to promote another Whitehall Federation on the lines
of South Arabia. In searching for precedents for a political union that might or might not
be the equivalent of federation, he turned over in his mind the possibility of a titular
sovereign on the Sudanese model and a rotating Head of State on the Malaysian
model. Weir to Crawford, Confidential, 1 Feb. 1968, FO 1016/855.
Julian Bullard to Michael Weir (Bahrain), Confidential, 26 Nov. 1968, FCO 8/915. See also
Parsons 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 to
Parsons himself as a slave of the Labour Party and cannot speak his own mind
Parsons to Crawford, Confidential, 22 July 1968, FCO 8/16.
Minute by Peter Hayman (Deputy Under-Secretary), 15 Dec. 1969, FCO 8/925.
R.H.M. Boyle (Qatar) to Sir Stewart Crawford (Bahrain), 12 May 1968, FCO 8/12.
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 Gulf
beyond the mid-1970s. Brief dated Nov. 1967, FCO 8/142.
Crawford to Paul Gore-Booth, Personal and Confidential, 3 Feb. 1968, FO 1016/885. See
also especially Crawford to FCO, Confidential, 27 Jan. 1968, FCO 8/33.
Crawford wrote that Robertss previous reassurance only increased the magnitude of the
reversal It seems unfortunate that he is not aware of this himself. Crawford to Paul GoreBooth, Personal and Confidential, 3 Feb. 1968, FO 1016/885.
They are greatly perplexed about where to turn, and feel bitterly that we are letting them
down. Crawford to FCO, Confidential, 27 Jan. 1968, FCO 8/33.
Parsons, They Say the Lion, 134.
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 declining
resources should the British merely stand back and watch, or try to take a hand in the
knowledge that our intervention may in practice make things worse and not better? Bullard
identified one of the problems as the British rationalisation that the plans for withdrawal had
been undertaken in the interests of the Rulers themselves. But this line of argument carried
little conviction with the Rulers, who saw clearly that the decision had been made purely
for British reasons.
See Bernard Burrows, Footnotes in the Sand: The Gulf in Transition, 19531958 (Salisbury,
Wiltshire, 1990), ch.4.
A.J.D. Stirling to Crawford, Confidential, 9 June 1969, FCO 8/1001.
Crawford to FCO, Confidential, 12 June 1968, FCO 8/3.
Arthur to FCO, Confidential, 19 April 1971, FCO 8/1572.
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 point
of general interest, Weir commented on the Huwala who had emigrated from southern
Persia to Bahrain in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: They remind me in some
ways of those Anglo-Irish families who [have] the attitude of Protestant Anglo-Irish to
the indigenous Catholics The younger generation of Huwala are generally speaking
Arab nationalist and Nasserite. Weir to Political Resident, Confidential, 17 June 1968, FO
1016/762.
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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 also
attributed to the Egyptians in general two motives; first, hatred of rulers and shaikhly
regimes 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, FO
1016/862.
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 any
Egyptian mission that should arrive We shall remind him of the risks in supping with
the devil. (Crawford memorandum of 1 June 1968, Confidential, FO 1016/862) Supping
with the devil was a recurrent theme, and not only in regard to Cairo. Michael Weir wrote
in early 1971: At varying times most of the States which have felt threatened, Bahrain, Abu
Dhabi and Ras al Khaimah, succumbed to the temptation to sup with the devil from
Baghdad. (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 coordinator for co-operation with Saudi Arabia because of their traditional ties with that
country. They also see themselves, with Dubai, as an ally of Iran. (Boyle to Political
Resident, Confidential, 12 April 1968, FO 1016/860). On the point about Egypt, again to
use Qatar as an example: Qatar favoured Egypt in the past. This feeling is long since cold
The Qataris suspect most peoples motives, but the Egyptians above all. (Boyle to
British Residency Bahrain, Confidential, 1 June 1968, FO 1016/862). The Political Resident
summed 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, 19501965: 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 and
had anticipated the Iraqi revolution. In the Gulf, however, his colleagues were mainly
sceptical. Who are [the] moderate evolutionaries? asked the Political Resident (Crawford
to FCO, Confidential, 28 July 1970, FCO 8/1318). In London the head of the Arabian
Department, Antony Acland, held that prior connections with radicals would not deflect
them 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 Life
in 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 Britains natural inheritor in this area and
their best defence against socialist and revolutionary subversion. R.H.M. Boyle to
Crawford, 12 April 1968, FCO 8/11.
311ich04.qxd
106
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.
68.
69.
70.
71.
72.
73.
74.
75.
76.
77.
78.
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W. Morris to FCO, Confidential, 16 April 1969, FCO 8/1181.
Sir Denis Wright to FCO, Confidential and Guard, 10 Feb. 1967, FCO 17/358.
Wright to FCO, Confidential, 2 Jan. 1969, FCO 17/849.
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 the
Shah would attempt to seize Bahrain by force in any circumstances. Memorandum by C.D.
Wiggin, 10 Feb. 1967, FCO 17/358.
Wright to A.R. Moore, Secret and Personal, 9 May 1968, FCO 8/28.
Memorandum by C.D. Wiggin, 10 Feb. 1967, FCO 17/358.
Wright to FCO, Confidential, 11 Jan. 1967, FCO 17/351.
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 to
FCO, Confidential, 27 Nov. 1968, FO 1016/870.
Crawford to FCO, Secret, 22 July 1970, FCO 8/1309.
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 has
to have a forward policy somewhere. As I see it, therefore, the incentive to make a bid
southwards must now be increasingly potent. Add to this their frantic resentment at Iranian
ambitions in the Gulf and their ideological opposition to the shaikhly rgimes ripe (as they
believe) for subversion on the Arab side, and you have a pretty heady mixture. BalfourPaul to FCO, Confidential, 21 Nov. 1970, FCO 17/1539.
Balfour-Paul to FCO, Confidential, 11 April 1970, FCO 8/1309.
Weir to Crawford, 8 Feb. 1968, FO 1016/754.
Crawford to FCO, Confidential, 27 Jan. 1968, FCO 8/33.
Record of meetings, 25 and 26 March 1968, FCO 8/33.
See Crawford to FCO, The Union of Arab Emirates, Confidential, 10 June 1968, FO
1016/865.
Memorandum by Goronwy Roberts, 28 March 1968, FCO 8/33.
Crawford to FCO, Confidential, 27 Jan. 1968, FCO 8/33.
Record of meetings, 25 and 26 March 1968, FCO 8/33.
Parsons to FCO, Confidential, 8 Feb. 1969, FO 1016/755.
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 view
that the aftermath would depend on the sheikhs themselves. If the possibility of a union of
the nine (Bahrain and Qatar plus the Trucial States) proved to be impossible, would the
remaining seven adopt, in Julian Bullards words, a mood of hopeless dejection, or would
a Dunkirk, were-on-our-own-now spirit prevail? Bullard, The Future of the Trucial
States, 8 July 1969, FO 1016/876.
Arthur to Elliot, Personal and Confidential, 19 June 1969, FCO 8/934.
Bullard to Weir, Confidential, 29 April 1969, FO 1016/873.
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.
On Heath and the possible reversal of British policy, see FCO 8/979.
Quoted in McCarthy to Crawford, Confidential and Personal, 8 May 1969, FO 1016/756.
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 States
and with the Arabs as a whole A satisfactory arrangement over the islands is, in the
Shahs words, a sine qua non for the wholehearted Iranian support for a Union. By
repeating the word satisfactory the Shah left no doubt that he meant annexation.
For Luce see especially Balfour-Paul, The End of Empire in the Middle East; for the
evolution of his views on the Gulf, Kelly, Arabia, the Gulf and the West, 8082.
Luce was not a man to whom the surrender of Empire came naturally. Sir Marrack
Goulding, Kuwait 1961, typescript, Middle East Centre, St Antonys 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 (196971), 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 the
region because they realise that the Gulf will shortly change from a relative backwater in
terms of U.S. political interests to a highly charged area of the world with all sorts of
divisive problems There is a widespread ignorance here about what goes on in that part
of the world. Even within the State Department, whose Arabists are very knowledgeable and
experienced, there are few who know the Gulf. Millard added that Joseph Sisco (the
Assistant Secretary of State in charge of Middle Eastern affairs) showed a splendidly oldfashioned 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 withdrawal
came from Walt W. Rostow, the Presidents Special Assisant on National Security. We
dont want to have to replace the British, he wrote in January 1968, and we dont want the
Russians there. The Americans would have to work with the Shah of Iran and with King
Faisal of Saudi Arabia as well as the British to secure the continuing western position in the
Gulf. We must count on the Shah and Faisal. As for the British, Rostow lamented the
impending demise of the Pax Britannica, but it was not yet a spent force. The British would
be in the Gulf for another three years. Before their departure in 1971, he hoped that they
would get this message: dont rock the boat any more than you already have; help us buy
time for the locals to work out their own arrangements for the future. Rostow put forward
two specific aims using much the same language: First, we want the British to leave their
treaties 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 and
let 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,
26869 and 27879.
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 Heaths notation on Luces memoranda of 4 Nov. 1970, PREM 15/538.
89. Parliamentary Debates, 2 March 1971, cols.142324.
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 the
opposite. Luce explicitly stated in his communications to the rulers as well as in his secret
minutes within the FCO, both before and after the Iranian occupation, that there was no
agreement. The situation probably appeared obvious that Iran had nothing to gain by going
to war with Britain. By waiting until the day before the protective treaties expired, the Shah
merely calculated that the British would still bear responsibility but could do nothing. Luce
afterwards explained that HMG could not reasonably be expected to defend the Islands for
one 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 Nassers 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
311ich04.qxd
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Balfour-Paul, shortly before he was expelled, summed up the mood in Iraq as well as the
British 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 charm
of many of the better educated, the Iraqis do not laugh as readily as other Arab peoples I
have lived with and there is always a detectable sense of suppressed rage or resentment in
the Iraqi atmosphere Almost by definition all Governments in Iraq are bad; and certainly
by definition they govern by intimidation The present Baathist model is not, though
nasty enough, as nasty as it is sometimes painted. And there is something to be said for
keeping 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 from the Gulf, 1967-71

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The British Withdrawal from the Gulf,

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sense there was a crisis of disillusionment with the British Empire. I am

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The British military and naval presence was essentially regulatory in

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In Bahrain, Anthony Parsons, the Political Agent, reported that the

presence would end in 1971. Roberts insisted as a point of honour that he

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In view of the danger of general upheaval in Bahrain, and the

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In the Gulf we do not have, as we have had in Aden, to constitute

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Oman, and Saudi Arabia. The overall problem was proving to be as

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31. Crawford to Michael Stewart, Confidential, 9 July 1969, FCO 8/920.

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79. Parsons, They Say the Lion, 107ff.

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