My Reading Notes

BP's financial interest

There were two other corporations who played a huge role in getting the Shah out;

entire year of 1978, there were negotiations between Iran and the oil consortium represented by BP; Talks on renewing the 25-year contracxt that began in 1953 after the Anglo-American intelligence coup that restored the Shah to the throne; these talks started in Jan 1978; they collapsed by Oct;

Iranians claimd that BP was blackmailing Iran by refusing to honor an agreement to buy most of Iran's oil production; they had authority to purchase up to 8 million barrels of oil a day, and had agreed to a minimum of 5 million, they were only purchasing 3-4 million; This forced Iran to adjust its income expectations and try toi market hte oil independently, which it was now doing;

In Oct 1978, at the height of ht revoltuion, the Shah and NIOC were negotiating teh economic future of Iran; BP refused to promise to buy Iranian oil but demanded the exclusive right to buy that oil should it wish to in the future; The Shah and NIOC flatly rejected BP's final offer, and it appeared that if the Shah overcame the revolt; if teh Shah survived the revolt, then Iran would be totally free in its oil policy in 1979, able to market its own oil to teh state companies of France, Spain, Brazil and many other countries on a state-to-state basis;

25 years w/ the consortium;
50 years w/ BP prior to that;

Almost simultaneously, the first signs of unrest began in the Iranian oil fields; Iranian oil output slowed several times during 1978, to a trickkel in the middle of the BP negotiations, Iran's bargaining chip (its oil) was suddenly taken off the table; The Iranian oil workers were organized by a team of radicals sent into teh Khuzestan by the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation;

Simultaneosly, capital began to leave the country; a flight organized through BP channels among Iran's financial elite; Bahai cult, had family connections to British merchants and BP dating back to the 19th century; NY Post reported in October 1978 that in tha tmonth alone $700 million left Iran through channels controlled by teh IRanian Jewish community ; For 2 centuries British have controlleld the smugglgin and drug trade in teh Gulf as a way station between the Far East Golden Triangle and the West;

In thi speriod that the shah missed his last real opportuntiy to stem the tide; Iran was well aware that the British-sponsored clergy was determined to bring down the regime; it was the talk of Tehran; France, W Germany and Japan ignored the British call for a boycott in 1953 under Mossadegh; Iraq was watching the revolution carefully as well; Iraq had placed the Ayatollah under arrest in Najaf, the Iraqi holy city; they did not want the Muslim revolution to spread ;

posted by Paul Sholtz @ 5:01 PM