Pulling the “Open Door” With Two Hands: American Oil Companies, the Iranian Oil Concession and the 1946 Azerbaijani Crisis

Traditional accounts of the American role in the 1946 Azerbaijani crisis tend to skew toward two diametrically opposed interpretations. Older accounts emphasize the hard stance taken by the Truman Administration against the Soviet occupation of northern Iran and the importance of Truman’s “ultimatum” to Stalin. These interpretations argue that American resistance to Soviet designs was critical in forcing the Soviet withdrawal from Azerbaijan. More recently, new interpretations have arisen which emphasize the minor importance of American policy-making and the secondary role played by American officials in forcing a conclusion to the crisis. Consistently, however, the role played by U.S. oil companies in first forcing the crisis and then later confusing the American response has been under-emphasized. Interest in obtaining an Iranian concession had a long history within the U.S. oil industry stretching back to the early 1920s, when U.S. companies vied for access to Middle Eastern oil with British firms, leading to considerable disruption in Anglo-American relations. Despite the strategic, political and economic ties associating the British Empire with the United States, competition within the oil industry threatened to pull apart the Anglo-American alliance. A similar situation arose in the early 1940s, as American companies eyed Iranian oil deposits that lay beyond the reach of the British and made a concerted effort to build an American oil presence in Iran similar to the position created by ARAMCO in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This paper will examine the origins of American interest in Iranian oil and the effect such ambitions had on Anglo-American relations within Iran during the 1940s. It will then connect the attempts of Standard-Vacuum and Sinclair Oil to gain oil concessions in 1942 with the Soviet decision to maintain its occupation of northern Iran in 1945-1946. The role of the U.S. companies in disrupting, confusing and otherwise obfuscating the American response to the crisis will be emphasized, as will the divisions that formed between American oil companies and the Truman Administration during the crisis. While a stronger American reaction to the Soviet occupation of Iran could have been possible, it was stymied by the competition between U.S. firms for an oil concession, the consternation this created between Great Britain and the U.S. and the agency of Iranian premier Ahmad Qavam, who resolved the crisis himself through skilful diplomacy with both the Americans and the Soviets.