By STEVE
EVERLY
Fearing a Russian invasion, the U.S. and Britain were prepared to ravage
the region’s oil industry — and even considered going nuclear.
On a cool summer
day in London in 1951, an American CIA officer told three British oil
executives about a top-secret U.S. government plan. The goal was to ravage the
Middle East oil industry if the region were ever invaded by the Soviet Union.
Oil wells would be plugged, equipment and fuel stockpiles destroyed, refineries
and pipelines disabled — anything to keep the USSR from getting its hands on
valuable oil resources. The CIA called it the “denial policy.”
Such a plan
couldn’t work without the cooperation of the British and American companies who
controlled the oil industry in the Middle East, which is why the CIA operative,
George Prussing, ended up at the Ministry of Fuel and Power in London that day.
To the British representatives of Iraq Petroleum, Kuwait Oil and Bahrain Oil,
Prussing detailed how their production operations in those countries would in
effect be transformed into a paramilitary force, trained and ready
to execute the CIA’s plan in the event of a Soviet invasion. He asked for their
help, and they agreed to cooperate. He also emphasized the need for security,
which included keeping the policy secret from the targeted Middle East
countries. “Security now is more important than the success of any operations,”
Prussing told them.
The CIA’s oil
denial policy is a snippet of a Cold War history that is finally giving up more
of its secrets. In 1996, a brief description of the plan emerged after the
Truman Presidential Library mistakenly declassified it — a security breach the
National Archives deemed the worst in its history — and some additional details
have trickled out over the years. But a recently discovered trove of documents
stashed in Britain’s National Archives, along with some key American documents,
now declassified, provide a more complete and more revelatory account —
published here for the first time.
It turns out that
the denial policy, long believed to have ended during Eisenhower’s presidency,
was in place much longer than that, lingering into the Kennedy administration.
And the newly discovered British documents reveal Britain was prepared to use
nuclear weapons to keep the Soviet Union from Middle Eastern oil. The documents
also show that the CIA played a far larger role than previously thought. The
State Department and the National Security Council were always known to have
been significantly involved, but in fact, it was the intelligence agency that
was the driving force of the operation, organizing American and British
companies to execute the denial policy, coming up with plans, providing
explosives and spying on some of those companies as part of its oversight.
The history of this
top secret U.S. government plot is a tumultuous mix of Arab nationalism, Big
Oil and the CIA on the most oil-rich chunk of real estate on earth.
Fundamentally, it is a tale of the growing importance of Middle Eastern oil and
the West’s early thirst to control it. And decades later, with that thirst
still driving U.S. involvement in the volatile region, it’s worth remembering
the risky scheme that foreshadowed it all.
* * *
The oil denial
policy was hatched in 1948 during the
Berlin Blockade, when the Soviet Union tried to block the West’s access to the
German city. The blockade stoked fears that further communist
aggression would include a sweep through Iran and Iraq to the Persian Gulf — an
invasion, the Truman administration worried, that U.S. troops and their allies
wouldn’t be able to stop. But American and British companies controlled Middle
Eastern oil, and the U.S. government decided a stop-gap measure
could stymie the Soviet military by ensuring its taste for fuel wasn’t slaked
with petroleum.
The National
Security Council’s plan, officially known as NSC 26/2 (and which was approved
by President Harry Truman in 1949), was for those American and British
companies to destroy or sideline Middle East oil resources and facilities at
the start of a Soviet offensive. According to the NSC 26/2 planning documents, the
State Department would provide oversight; the CIA would handle operational
details for each country.
Based on National
Security Council documents, the intelligence agency immediately approached
Terry Duce, Aramco’s vice president of government relations, for advice about
implementing a covert denial plan in Saudi Arabia. Aramco owned the rights to
produce Saudi Arabian oil and had a working relationship with the country’s
government. Duce, who liked to wear a black beret and loved the spy game, had
served a stint at the federal government’s Petroleum Administration during
World War II and was well known in Washington. Allen Dulles, who later became
the CIA’s director, was a frequent guest at Duce’s home.
Aramco, jointly
owned at the time by predecessor companies of Exxon Corp., Mobil Inc., Chevron
Corp. and Texaco Inc., threw itself into the effort by providing the CIA with
crucial advice, including how to plug oil wells and disable refineries. Through
Duce, Aramco also volunteered its employees to execute the plan and was even
willing to consider their induction into the military if the plan were
triggered. (Aramco and U.S. officials hoped military status would protect
employees from execution for sabotage if they were captured.)
In the meantime,
according to British Foreign Office documents, the British government was
notified about NSC 26/2 and threw its support behind the measure, agreeing to
prepare denial plans for its oil companies in Iran and Iraq. Britain’s approach
differed from the outset: While the CIA’s strategy for Saudi Arabia relied
entirely on Aramco employees and not at all on the U.S. military, the British
plan used airborne troops to protect and assist the hundreds of oil company employees
who would participate in destroying the facilities.
All appeared to be
going well for the CIA’s ambitious plot. But it wasn’t long until this
promising start began to degenerate. British oil companies turned out to be way
more reluctant to cooperate than their government had been. In late 1950, Sir
Thomas Fraser, chairman of Anglo-Iranian Oil Co., a jewel in the
fading British Empire, learned for the first time his company was expected to
provide hundreds of employees for the denial scheme. He feared economic
blackmail, even expulsion, if the Iranian government learned about his
company’s involvement — and, according to British documents, Fraser pulled
Anglo-Iranian Oil out of the plan in late 1950.
George McGhee, an
undersecretary at the State Department, was furious. In February 1951, he
summoned a British official to Foggy Bottom and told him it was time for his
government to make up its mind regardless of what Anglo-Iranian Oil — later to
be renamed British Petroleum—thought. “It was quite unjustifiable that the oil
denial arrangements should not be completed to the last detail,” McGhee said,
according to a British memo about the meeting. In response a few weeks
later,the British offered a denial blueprint for Iran that depended entirely on
military troops and suggested a similar approach for Iraq. According to British
documents that reveal communication with the State Department, this
proposal stunned U.S. officials, who believed the plan would fail without the
expertise and manpower provided by the oil companies.
What the United
States didn’t know, however, was that the British were in fact willing to tap
their oil companies for assistance, and that the oil companies were willing to
provide it. London just didn’t want the United States to be aware of this, for
fear that U.S. knowledge would jeopardize the secret. “We are bound not to let
them know how much British oil companies are cooperating,” said D.P. Reilly of
Britain’s Foreign Office to a senior British military official, a few weeks
after the McGhee meeting.
* * *
When George
Prussing, the CIA operative assigned to
work with Middle Eastern oil companies on denial plans, stepped into the State
Department on May 1, 1951, he hoped to convince the two British diplomatic and
military officials there to meet him that they needed the CIA’s help to salvage
their strategies. He gave them for the first time a detailed briefing of the
Aramco plan he had helped develop, hoping that it would serve as a model for
the rest of the region.
The Aramco denial
plan, according to British notes of Prussing’s briefing, was organized around
the company’s three administrative districts in Saudi Arabia. Forty-five senior
Aramco employees were “fully in the picture.” Altogether 645 employees were
earmarked to participate, but most knew only of their individual roles to
prevent disclosure of the overall plan.
In addition, five
CIA undercover agents were embedded in Aramco in jobs such as storekeeper and
general manager’s assistant. They were charged with keeping the intelligence
agency informed of the company’s work on the denial plan and any developments
that might affect it. Outside the CIA, only one Aramco executive and one State
Department official were aware of the agents’ real jobs, according to the
British notes.
The goal was to
keep the Soviets from tapping Saudi Arabia’s oil and refined fuels for up to a
year in the event of an invasion. The plan would unfold in phases, starting
with destruction of fuel stockpiles and disabling Aramco’s refinery. Selective
demolitions would destroy key refinery components difficult for the Russians to
replace. This would leave much of the refinery intact, making it easier for
Aramco to resume production after the Soviets were ousted.
According to
British notes of this meeting, the CIA had already imported military-grade
explosives into Saudi Arabia, specially shaped to fit specific parts, to store
in bunkers on Aramco property. Flamethrowers were to be widely used to melt
small equipment parts. Other weapons included special grenades tested for
destroying fuel stockpiles. Cement trucks were ordered for plugging oil wells.
Trucks, railway
cars, generators and drilling rigs were also slated for destruction. Aramco
employees, besides receiving military commissions, would be evacuated to safety
once the denial operation was completed, Prussing said.
The briefing
impressed J.A. Beckett, petroleum attaché at the British Embassy in Washington,
who fired off a telegram to London advising that Aramco and the CIA had
“developed a satisfactory modus operandi for this type of
covert planning and are most anxious to extend their activities to cover the
remaining [oil] fields.”
Prussing sought
approval to install Aramco-style plans in Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar, where a
mix of American and British oil companies were then operating, according to
British documents. Britain, the governing authority in those countries,
accepted Prussing’s proposal as long as Britain could remain responsible for
triggering the execution of the denial plans in Kuwait and Qatar. (A decision
about which country would order the plan to begin in Bahrain was deferred although
Britain was inclined to give it to the United States.)
Britain remained
responsible for developing the denial plans for Iran and Iraq, but Prussing
offered the CIA’s assistance. To this end, British officials arranged a meeting
in London for the next month, which is how Prussing ended up briefing
executives from oil companies in Kuwait, Bahrain and Iraq in June 1951. There,
according to British notes of of the meeting, Prussing reviewed the Aramco plan
with the businessnmen and said he was ready to advise and assist their own
denial plans. They agreed to the assistance.
Yet, there was one
key oil empire conspicuously missing from the meeting: Iran. Arranging plans
for that country was proving to be far more difficult than for the others.
* * *
In early 1951,
Iran was a steaming stew of
resentment toward Anglo-Iranian Oil. The British company’s shabby treatment of
its Iranian employees and its mercenary grip on the country’s oil riches had
long soured relations between the company and the country.
Whispers about the
denial plan were making things even worse. In December 1950, a Tehran newspaper
published a story that reported rumors of high-level British government
discussions to destroy Iran’s oil industry in the event of war —
arousing astonishment and anxiety in Iranian political circles. The story also
set off alarms bells in London and at Anglo-Iranian Oil, where efforts were
redoubled to keep its cooperation a secret. Based on British Foreign Office
documents detailing a conversation with an Anglo-Iranian executive, the
company’s general manager was told — whether by his company or the government,
it’s not clear — to disavow any knowledge of the denial plan. “The article was
far too near the truth,” A.T. Chisholm, a company executive, said while dropping
off a translated copy of the story at the British Foreign Office in London.
At the time, the
British government owned 51 percent of Anglo-Iranian Oil, but an unusual clause
in the ownership agreement prevented the government from being involved in the
company’s commercial matters. According to Foreign Office documents discussing
Anglo-Iranian’s participation in the plan, Fraser, the company’s chairman,
shrewdly used this provision to push his view that the denial plan would be a
financial disaster for the company. He warned that an American competitor might
intentionally leak his company’s participation to Iran’s government to gain an
advantage in the country — and he said he would not participate.
“He was convinced
that no security measure would be effective once the American oil companies
were brought into the picture,” said R. Kelf-Cohen, an official with Britain’s
Ministry of Fuel and Power, during a meeting in London to discuss the denial
policy.
But Fraser, under
pressure after the McGhee meeting with British government officials in February
1951, eventually grudgingly agreed to allow a denial plan to use his company’s
employees. He had conditions, though. His approval would be required, for
instance, to execute the denial plan until he was sure the company could
recover any financial losses incurred. The British government decided that his
cooperation would be kept secret from the Americans so that U.S. oil companies
didn’t try to undercut Ango-Iranian oil.
But then, Iranian
politics put a wrench in the plan. On March 7, 1951, Iranian Prime Minister Ali
Razmara was assassinated by a nationalist and was replaced in April
by Mohammad Mosaddeq, who promptly nationalized the company.
Seizure of
Anglo-Iranian Oil’s assets by the Iranian government nixed the denial plan with
consequences that threatened the entire NSC 26/2 policy. The company produced
half the oil in the Middle East and more than half the gasoline, diesel and jet
fuel. Its Abadan refinery was the largest in the world and by itself could probably
satisfy a Soviet invasion’s thirst for fuel.
The
nationalization triggered a scramble for options. According to British
documents, the United States asked Britain if the plan’s mission to
counter a Soviet invasion could be salvaged with airborne strikes aiding
British troops on the ground. Britain rejected this idea, claiming spare troops
were not available and the ground demolitions called for by the plan would be
too dangerous without the expert assistance of refinery workers.
According British
military documents, Britain’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, responsible for the
country’s denial planning, decided instead that “oil denial [in Iran] can only
be carried out by air attack.” Still, they were skeptical about having enough
aircraft to successfully attack the massive Abadan refinery. Because of this
fear, the plan that emerged was highly targeted: If the Soviets invaded Iran,
the British Royal Air Force based in Iraq would attack fuel stockpiles at the
Abadan facility, which was then idled by a British embargo of Iranian oil,
leaving the refinery intact. British aircraft would snip production at the Abadan
refinery, if reactivated, by bombing a railway that delivered crude oil to the
facility. Airstrikes would also hit two small refineries in Iran, at Kermanshah
and Naft-I-Shah, along with their fuel stockpiles.
* * *
By late 1951, as
the denial plan for Iran reorganized, the plan for Saudi Arabia was settling in.
Prussing was even treating a handful of Aramco employees to a picnic in the
desert where they discussed the gritty details of oil denial over sandwiches.
“Refinery
explosions would work like Chinese firecrackers; when one exploded it would set
off another,” Bill Otto, an Aramco employee and a manager of the company’s
denial plan who was at the picnic, told me in an interview.
The CIA wanted a
speedy timetable to ensure the plan could be completed before the Soviets
arrived. The agency had already arranged a communications channel that would
allow the U.S. secretary of state to send the order triggering the denial plan
to a boat sitting off the shore of Saudi Arabia. Aramco did its part by filling
binders with photos, diagrams and instructions needed to execute the plan. A
handful of the company’s American employees stored the 20,000 pounds of dynamite
and plastic explosives needed for the demolitions — a job done without arising
suspicion since Aramco used explosives in its normal operations.
“The program
didn’t have any meat to it until we started putting [demolition details] down,”
said Otto, a former Army bomb disposal expert. “[The CIA was] happy to have
someone else doing it.”
There were other
signs of progress in the region, with Bahrain Petroleum Co. and Kuwait Oil
wrapping up their Aramco-style denial plans while the British oil company in
Qatar agreed to cooperate with the CIA, according to a National Security
Council document tracking the denial plan’s progress. A U.S. delegation
visiting the Middle East in late 1951 gushed that “pre-war plans for denial of
oil facilities have never before been so perfected.”
But this
confidence was premature as Aramco, Kuwait Oil and Bahrain Petroleum executives
signaled second thoughts, according to a later NSC progress report. They told
U.S. officials in 1952 that they had made no final decisions about their
companies’ role in executing the denial plan. “I think they saw the
difficulties,” said Parker Hart, the State Department consul general in Saudi
Arabia at the time.
These difficulties
included using employees to execute the policy. Though the companies had
initially embraced the idea, they later had doubts about their authority to
force workers to participate in the dangerous operation. That problem could be
fixed by using volunteers, but the companies wanted military protection for
them, something not part of the CIA’s plans. But the biggest issue for these
companies, just like for Anglo-Iranian Oil, centered on the economic
consequences if the denial plans leaked to the host governments: Aramco, for
example, was producing more than twice the amount of oil it had been when it
agreed to help the CIA in 1948 — and bigger revenues meant the company was less
prepared to risk Saudi Arabia’s wrath.
Looking for some
insurance, Kuwait Oil and Bahrain Petroleum requested letters from the British
and American governments stating their companies had been
commandeered for the denial plan. They could show the letters to local
government officials if the plan leaked, which they hoped would save their
companies. But the State Department refused to provide the letters, saying they
were unnecessary: There was ample evidence in its files to show it pressured
the companies to cooperate. British officials summarily rejected the request
fearing the “demand for such a letter appeared to be a lever which might be
used in any subsequent discussions on compensation.”
Aramco and Kuwait
Oil, by then the largest oil producers in the Middle East after production
plummeted in Iran following the nationalization of Anglo-Iranian, tried another
route and pushed for disclosure of the denial plans to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
The United States again refused, since it was about to ask some Middle Eastern
countries to join a military alliance (which became the Baghdad Pact of 1955).
U.S. officials believed disclosure of the denial policy could derail the
fledgling alliance.
With that, Aramco
decided the economic risk for the company was too great and demanded removal of
denial plans and explosives from its property. The company believed the surge
in denial training and the growing number of Saudi employees at Aramco made a
security leak inevitable, and American diplomats in the country agreed. “You’d
never get away with it,” said U.S. Consul General Hart to the State Department.
* * *
The setback in
Saudi Arabia threatened to kill the denial policy as it limped into the Eisenhower
administration in 1953. But just a few weeks after the new president’s
inauguration, a report on NSC 26/2 landed at the National Security Council, and
ignited efforts to save it. The author of the report was Walter Bedell Smith, a
former chief of staff and trusted aide for Ike during World War II who was settling
into a State Department job. He told colleagues he was “vexed” by the denial
policy, and his report, seasoned by his recent three-year stint as CIA
director, reflected it. He sketched out the plan’s problems, which went beyond
Aramco’s reluctance to participate. The use of volunteers was under review, but
they might not be as effective as hand-picked employees. The program to plug
oil wells was also in trouble because of the time it took to complete the job.
The report noted high-level discussions taking place about giving the U.S.
military more responsibility for the denial policy, which would diminish the
CIA’s control.
The report led
with a bullet-point list of the changes in oil demand and supply since the
approval of NSC 26/2 four years before. The United States had become a net
importer of 600,000 barrels of oil per day, double what it was in 1949, and the
United Kingdom’s demand for imported oil climbed had to 161 million barrels in
1952, up from 126 million barrels just three years earlier. During the same
period, Middle East oil production had soared to meet the needs of the West.
A follow-up review
found that while denial plans were still needed to counter the
Soviets, it was increasingly important that Middle East oil be preserved for
later use by the West. The denial policy’s use of selective demolitions
promised a quick production rebound once the Soviets were ousted. The problem
was with plugging the oil wells, which could take a week or more to do — not
fast enough in the face of a rapid Soviet assault. Unplugged wells could allow
the Soviets to cause permanent damage to the oil fields, by setting the wells
on fire or letting them flow freely.
In 1954,
Eisenhower approved NSC 5401, which straddled these disparate goals. The new
policy called for “conservation” of Middle East oil, with more emphasis on
plugging oil wells in a timely way, while also maintaining ground demolitions.
At the same time, a last resort plan was added: If the companies were unable to
execute ground demolitions, the U.S. military would destroy the oil
facilities with airstrikes.
The State
Department also eyed the military to fill the vacuum left by Aramco’s refusal
to execute the ground demolitions — that meant sending in troops to do the job.
But the Defense Department pushed back. Smith told the National Security
Council, as it mulled approval of NSC 5401, that he understood the military’s
reluctance but it was inevitable that oil denial in Saudi Arabia was primarily
a military job. Allen Dulles, by then director of CIA, agreed that for Saudi
Arabia if “anything at all were to be done on D-Day, it would be done by the
military.”
But the Defense
Department, anticipating a shortage of troops in the region, refused to commit
to ground demolitions. Airstrikes were still available as a last resort, but
they were not ideal since disabling rather than destroying the fields was the
preferred outcome. “The most therefore that could be hoped for was the [ground
demolition] job could be done by experts from Aramco and the CIA with some
degree of protection by the military,” said Robert Cutler, Eisenhower’s special
assistant for national security, according to a National Security Council
document in December 1953.
Had Aramco changed
its mind? Cutler left it an open question, but William Chandler,
vice president at the time of Aramco-owned Tapline, said in an interview before
his death in 2009 that the company did resume cooperation, at least to some
extent. He received a call in early 1954 from an Aramco executive to expect a
briefing about a “special program” involving Tapline, which operated an oil
pipeline across Saudi Arabia. The plan was to disable the pipeline if the
Soviets invaded by destroying key valves in its pumps. Company supervisors were
trained to use plastic explosives, which they stored in footlockers under their
beds. “It was something we were ordered to do,” said Chandler.
* * *
Meanwhile, Britain
was also rethinking its denial
plans for Iran and Iraq. In 1953, a coup in Iran, backed by the United States
and Britain, installed a friendlier government. An oil consortium, majority
owned by British Petroleum and the four American oil companies that owned
Aramco, was created to manage the bulk of the country’s oil industry. But Iranian government
owned facilities were emerging despite the consortium, according to British
documents.
The same thing was
happening in Iraq, where hundreds of Iraq Petroleum employees were prepared to
disable the company’s massive Kirkuk petroleum complex. The British company’s
grip on the Iraqi oil industry had loosened, and the country’s government
controlled refineries in Baghdad, Basra and Alwand.
For the denial
plans to succeed in these countries, these government-controlled facilities had
to be sidelined as well as all the others. But asking Iran and Iraq’s
governments to develop denial plans would confirm existence of the policy and
likely cause the two countries to lose confidence in their Western allies. That
left Britain with the option to use airstrikes, but the military was wary of that
option: German refineries during World War II had proven difficult to knock out
using conventional bombs.
In 1955, when
Britain was just starting to stockpile nuclear weapons, Britain’s Joint Chiefs
of Staff showed interest in using nuclear weapons to destroy oil facilities in
Iran and Iraq. The “most complete method of destroying oil installations would
be by nuclear bombardment,” read a 1955 report endorsed by Britain’s Joint
Chiefs of Staff. It’s not clear if U.S. officials were involved in these discussions
at this stage. But according to British military documents reviewing denial
plan options, the Joint Chiefs, had minister-level approval to ask the United
States to help by using some of its nuclear arsenal on Iran if the denial plan
were triggered, according to British Ministry of Defence documents.
The request
was discussed in a meeting with U.S. officials in London in early 1956. Meeting
records don’t mention any American reaction to the proposal. But a decision was
deferred until Prussing could review the denial plan for Iran and inspect its
oil fields and facilities. A British memorandum to Britain’s Joint
Chiefs of Staff after the meeting said in the “near future, the only feasible
means [in Iran] of oil denial would be American nuclear action.”
After returning
from Iran, Prussing concluded that oil denial using ground demolitions was
still workable for the country. In British military documents dated after
Prussing’s review, British officials noted the growing number of
U.S. nationals working in Iran made it increasingly likely that ground
demolitions would be successful, and that nuclear destruction wouldn’t be
necessary. Otto, Aramco’sexpert on ground demolitions, was dispatched to help
the British restructure its denial plan for Iran.
Elsewhere, Britain
and the United States agreed to extend the reach of the denial policy. A
refinery in Lebanon owned by predecessor companies of Chevron and Texaco, and a
British refinery in Egypt for the first time were covered by denial plans. A
proposed refinery in Syria was slated for one as soon as it was completed. The
United States agreed to be responsible for denial planning in the Kuwait
Neutral Zone, a patch of land between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The British
identified refineries and pipelines in Israel and Turkey to eventually target.
The progress was
encouraging enough for the State and Defense Departments and the CIA in 1956 to
propose continuing the denial policy essentially unchanged. But a junior
staffer at the National Security Council had a different idea. He believed
changing politics in the Middle East meant that “the whole operation” should be
killed.
* * *
George Weber, 31,
was no stranger to the denial policy, having assisted the government committee whose
recommendations led to NSC 5401. But by 1956 the University of Cincinnati
graduate and NSC staffer believed it should be shelved, in part because it only
dealt with a war involving the Soviet Union. By that year, the Soviets weren’t
the only problem for Western nations in the Middle East; burgeoning Arab
nationalism movements were also a threat to the West’s hold on regional oil.
President Gamal Abdul Nasser’s 1956 nationalization of the Suez Canal was a
prime example.
Weber also
questioned the usefulness of selective demolitions to disable facilities since
the Soviets would probably completely destroy them when forced to retreat.
Meanwhile, increased selective-demolitions training by the oil companies was
raising chances of a security leak, “I think the Council should review very
carefully the wisdom of such a program,” he said in a memorandum to Cutler,
Eisenhower’s national security adviser.
The denial policy
was not killed, but Weber triggered a transformation, and in a few months
Eisenhower approved its replacement: NSC 5714. The destruction of oil
facilities in the event of a Soviet invasion remained part of the plan as a
last resort, but only with “direct military action” as opposed to employee
involvement directed by the CIA. The CIA partnership with the oil companies was
abandoned. “Covert denial by civilian agencies had become impracticable,” said
William Rountree, a State Department official, in a memo.
The new policy
also became more preemptive, swinging toward protection of oil facilities in
the face of new threats in addition to Soviet invasion, like sabotage and
regional war. In this, Middle Eastern countries were to be asked to play an
unprecedented role. Oil companies and local governments were to work together
to boost security, including hardening oil facilities for protection against
attack. Local governments would also be asked to cooperate in plugging oil
wells if they were threatened to save the oil for later use by the West.
“Thus the evolution
of this policy has taken another step,” Weber said.
The shift did not
put an end to other American and British plans involving Middle East oil. A
broader U.S initiative in 1958 — unrelated to NSC 5714 — called for the
possible use of military force as a last resort against Arab nationalists, to
keep the oil flowing at reasonable prices. The British in 1957, deeming a
Soviet invasion unlikely, refined plans to use its military to protect oil
installations in Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar if threatened by “Egyptian
subversion.”
How NSC 5714 fit
in to this new Middle Eastern security landscape is unclear. It was put in
place, but the handful of declassified documents reveals little about its fate,
including whether or not any local governments agreed to cooperate. In 1963, the
Kennedy White House asked the State Department whether NSC 5714 should be
rescinded, replaced by something else, or if it still represented U.S. policy.
That is the last document I was able to find about the denial plan in America
or Britain. A response is not in the file, and it’s unclear when the policy
ended.
Those in the field
did notice the shift brought on by NSC 5714. Otto was instructed to destroy the
10 tons of explosives stashed at Aramco, which rattled windows miles away. He
was also was dispatched in the late 1950s to Tapline to remove the explosives
still tucked under the beds of supervisors. Chandler, who became president of
Tapline, was relieved to see them gone. The Saudis believed they owned the
pipeline and would have been furious about the denial plan.
So why take the
risk from the start? Patriotism was high in the years after World War II,
Chandler later recalled, and so was the willingness to help the United States
in its fight against communism.
“We had a good
crowd and we didn’t have complaints and that was the amazing thing,” he said.
“It was just we had to do this and everyone went along with it.”
Steven Everly is a
former reporter for the Kansas
City Star. The National Security Archive, a non-governmental institute
based at George Washington University, is posting U.S. and British documents
about the denial policy. They are available here.
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