The Coup

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-104
Author(s):  
Mojtaba Ebrahimian
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Oil Industry ◽  
Oil Field ◽  
Persian Language ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Baruch College ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
Iranian History ◽  
Oil Company

In his most recent work, The Coup: 1953, the CIA, and the Roots of ModernU. S.-Iranian Relations, Ervand Abrahamian (Distinguished Professor of Iranianand Middle Eastern History, Baruch College of the City University, NewYork) recounts a definitive moment of modern Iranian history that overshadowsIranian-American relations to this day. Drawing on a remarkable varietyof sources – accessible Iranian official documents, the Foreign Office andState Department files, memoirs and biographies, newspaper articles publishedduring the crisis, recent Persian-language books published in Iran, aCIA report leaked in 2000 known as “the Wilber document,” and two contemporaryoral history projects (the Iranian Oral History Project at HarvardUniversity and the Iranian Left history project in Berlin) – the author providesa detailed and thorough account of the 1953 coup.Challenging the dominant consensus among academicians and politicalanalysts that the coup transpired because of the Cold War rivalries betweenthe West and the Soviet Union, he locates it within the paradigms of the clashbetween an old imperialism and a burgeoning nationalism. He then traces itsorigins to Iran’s struggle to nationalize its oil industry and the Anglo-Americanalliance against this effort.The book is divided into four chapters. The first chapter, “Oil Nationalization,”narrates the history of Iran’s oil industry and various encounters betweenthe Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) and the Iranians. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC), an English company founded in 1908 followingthe discovery of a large oil field in Masjed Soleiman in southern Iran, wasrenamed AIOC in 1935. AIOC gradually turned into a vital British asset andprovided its treasury with more than £24 million a year in taxes and £92 millionin foreign exchange in the first decades of the twentieth century ...

Generals, Statesmen, and International Politics in Europe, 1898-1945The Republic in Danger: General Maurice Gamelin and the Politics of French Defence, 1933-1940 by Martin S. Alexander. New York, Cambridge University Press, 1992. xiv, 573 pp. $94.95 U.S.Churchill, edited by Robert Blake and Wm. Roger Louis. New York, W.W. Norton, 1993. xv, 579 pp. $46.99.Louis Loucheur and the Shaping of Modem France, 1916-1931 by Stephen D. Carls. Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Louisiana State University Press, 1993. xv, 330 pp.Churchill: The End of Glory, A Political Biography by John Charmley. Toronto, MacFarlane Walter and Ross, 1993. viii, 742 pp. $45.00.The French Foreign Office and the Origins of the First World War, 1898-1914 by M. B. Hayne. Don Mills, Ontario, Clarendon Press, 1993. 328 pp. $78.95.When the Soviet Union Entered World Politics by Jon S. Jacobson. Berkeley, California, University of California Press, 1994. xi, 388 pp. $18.00 U.S.Chamberlain and Appeasement: British Policy and the Coming of the Second World War by R.A.C. Parker. London, Macmillan, 1993. 388 pp. £12.99.Dilemmas of Appeasement: British Deterrence and Defense, 1934-1937 by Gaines Post, Jr. Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 1993. xiii, 363 pp. $48.50 U.S.

1995 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 289-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Jabara Carley
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
World Politics ◽  
State University ◽  
World War ◽  
Political Biography ◽  
Cornell University ◽  
Louisiana State University ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Foreign Office

Exploration for Oil in the Soviet Union: Special Problems Facing Western Companies

1998 ◽  
Vol 9 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 4-16
Author(s):  
Michael R. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Foreign Investment ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Oil Industry ◽  
Petroleum Potential ◽  
Oil Companies ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Autonomous Regions ◽  
Taxation System ◽  
Geological Analysis

The Soviet Union, including its Republics and Autonomous Regions, although remaining the world's largest oil and gas producer, is seeking the co-operation of the international oil industry to assist in further developing its vast reserves and potential resources. A legislation and taxation system that allows for foreign investment in the Soviet oil industry is being created. Many international oil companies, large and small, are currently evaluating opportunities in the country. Western companies have not been directly involved in Soviet oil operations since 1918. During the intervening years significant diversities of approach, particularly with regard to exploration methods and geological analysis, have emerged between Soviet and western geoscientists. Such differences have caused a myriad of special problems for geologists and geophysicists employed by western oil companies newly evaluating the petroleum potential of the country. These probems must be addressed and overcome before embarking on an expensive exploration or development venture.

The Spy (K.G.B. General Alexander Orlov), the Dupe (Bertram D. Wolfe), and the Documents (The Stalin Resolutions)

2014 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 375-417
Author(s):  
Jennifer McDowell ◽  
Milton Loventhal
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Bright Light ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
National Archives ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
Secret Agent ◽  
The Web

Two-hundred and forty-two consecutive, Soviet Politburo resolutions on foreign policy covering 1934–1936, some built on reports by Stalin with his actual words, and 34 pieces of 1934 espionage correspondence that traveled between the Moscow Foreign Office and its branch in the Soviet Embassy in Vienna, were purchased clandestinely by German intelligence, at the time, and as they were written. A German Sovietologist named Dr. Georg Leibbrandt authenticated them right at the time. Adolf Hitler read them. They influenced his decision to attack the Soviet Union in 1941. Captured by the U.S. Army in Germany (OMGUS) at the close of World War II, they were brought to the United States, to the National Archives and Hoover Institution. Milton Loventhal and Jennifer McDowell translated and authenticated them, using both sets of copies. The story of their authentication sheds light on the 1960–1961 machinations of one of Stalin’s foremost secret agents, master spy K.G.B. General Alexander Orlov, who fled to the United States in 1938 to escape Stalin’s terror. But this “loyal Soviet dropout” (Stanley G. Payne’s term) was in reality a cloaked agent who had never renounced his loyalty to the Soviet state. Asked by Bertram D. Wolfe to comment on the resolutions’ authenticity, Orlov informed Milton Loventhal and Wolfe that these documents were forgeries, using arguments that were proven worthless in their entirety. Untangling the web of deception Orlov wove around these detailed, complex documents is the focus of this article, shining a bright light on the power a mesmerizing secret agent can have when the rules of research are abandoned by influential experts.

Iraq-US Relations, 1920–2003

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brandon Wolfe-Hunnicutt
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Regime Change ◽  
Technical Assistance ◽  
Oil Industry ◽  
The United States ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
Oil Boom ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Petroleum Company

Oil played a central role in shaping US policy toward Iraq over the course of the 20th century. The United States first became involved in Iraq in the 1920s as part of an effort secure a role for American companies in Iraq’s emerging oil industry. As a result of State Department efforts, American companies gained a 23.75 percent ownership share of the Iraq Petroleum Company in 1928. In the 1940s, US interest in the country increased as a result of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. To defend against a perceived Soviet threat to Middle East oil, the US supported British efforts to “secure” the region. After nationalist officers overthrew Iraq’s British-supported Hashemite monarchy in 1958 and established friendly relations with the Soviet Union, the United States cultivated an alliance with the Iraqi Baath Party as an alternative to the Soviet-backed regime. The effort to cultivate an alliance with the Baath foundered as a result the Baath’s perceived support for Arab claims against Israel. The breakdown of US-Baath relations led the Baath to forge an alliance with the Soviet Union. With Soviet support, the Baath nationalized the Iraq Petroleum Company in 1972. Rather than resulting in a “supply cutoff,” Soviet economic and technical assistance allowed for a rapid expansion of the Iraqi oil industry and an increase in Iraqi oil flowing to world markets. As Iraq experienced a dramatic oil boom in the 1970s, the United States looked to the country as a lucrative market for US exports goods and adopted a policy of accommodation with regard to Baath. This policy of accommodation gave rise to close strategic and military cooperation throughout the 1980s as Iraq waged war against Iran. When Iraq invaded Kuwait and seized control of its oil fields in 1990, the United States shifted to a policy of Iraqi containment. The United States organized an international coalition that quickly ejected Iraqi forces from Kuwait, but chose not to pursue regime change for fear of destabilizing the country and wider region. Throughout the 1990s, the United States adhered to a policy of Iraqi containment but came under increasing pressure to overthrow the Baath and dismantle its control over the Iraqi oil industry. In 2003, the United States seized upon the 9/11 terrorist attacks as an opportunity to implement this policy of regime change and oil reprivatization.

scholarly journals Conflits et recomposition d'un ordre régional dans la Corne de l'Afrique

2005 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-321
Author(s):  
Roland Marchal
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Horn Of Africa ◽  
Internal Dynamics ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Gulf States

From 1988, there has been a change in the pace of events in the Horn of Africa. The United States and the Soviet Union opted out of the logic of cold war which obtained up to then, leaving more room open to an intervention by neighbouring States (Israel, Irak, the Gulf States). The extension into the Horn of the Middle-Eastern rivalries is all the more real since the political powers are all in a precarious position, despite their use of an unmitigated coercion. Yet, the internal dynamics, which are complex, are still prevailing. It does not seem from their current evolution that there is any hope for real peace talks to end the conflicts.

Takeover

Uprooted ◽  
2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregor Thum
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Washington State ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
Population Exchange ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
Washington State Department ◽  
German Reich ◽  
Full Swing ◽  
East Prussia

This chapter talks about the impending Polish takeover of the German territories. On August 2, 1945, the Allies decided to remove from the German Reich all territories east of the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers and place them under Polish administration, with the exception of northern East Prussia, which was to be ceded to the Soviet Union. By this point in time a Polish mayor was already in office in Breslau and the population exchange was in full swing. However, before the Allies had reached an agreement about the precise location of the new German–Polish border, and while experts in the London Foreign Office and the Washington State Department were still reviewing the economic and logistical consequences of the various border proposals, the Soviet government and the Soviet-installed Polish regime had resolved the border issue on their own.

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