The politics of oil in the Middle East and North Africa, 1930-1939

This dissertation defines the interest of the United States in the economic and political aspects of oil in the Middle East throughout the nineteen thirties. It specifically analyzes the effectiveness of the United States "Open Door" policy of insuring commercial rights of American Oil companies to gain exploration and exploitation rights. The research is based on State Department documents and reports of petroleum affairs in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Christian Science Monitor, memoirs of the active participants and other specialized books.;The State Department's reluctance to insist upon the Open Door doctrine had resulted in very little official support. It thus largely limited the activities of the American legations to introducing oil company representatives to officials in the respective countries.;The State Department did not initially appreciate the importance of Middle East oil in power politics. The Department and the Legations were hampered in their analyses regarding oil exploration by an almost total dependency for information on representatives of the oil companies which were selective and not impartial. Judging by the paucity of the coverage, the press had viewed petroleum affairs as of little importance and never mentioned the Open Door doctrine.;The success of the "Open Door" in the 1920s had produced oil rights for Americans in Bahrain and a share in the Turkish Petroleum Company. By 1933 the State Department dropped the appellation "Open Door" while continuing indifferently with the policy. State apparently considered the policy, in view of the decreasing demand for oil, as an unnecessary hindrance in maintaining good relations with Britain and France. At the same time, these powers avoided direct confrontation with the United States, cognizant of the huge debts owing the United States and possibly its latent power. With the demise of the Open door, the State Department, actually was preventing new and especially smaller companies from venturing into oil exploration and development in the region. The State Department had established a comfortable and exclusive niche for selected large oil companies.