890b.6363 Gulf Oil
Corporation/170
The Chargé in Great Britain (Atherton) to the
Secretary of State
No. 582
London, December 28, 1932.
[Received
January 7, 1933.]
Sir: I have the honor to refer to my
telegram No. 345 of December 28, 12 noon,17 and to report that on
December 22 I called by
[Page 28]
appointment on Sir Robert
Vansittart and invited his attention to the fact that
the Embassy had yet received no reply to the representations made by
the Ambassador in the matter of the Koweit oil concession, reported
in the Embassy’s despatch No. 558 of December 15, 1932. Sir Robert stated his regret at
the delay and promised an immediate reply.
On the evening of December 23 I received a Foreign Office note signed
by the Assistant Secretary of State, Sir
Lancelot Oliphant. A copy of this is attached hereto.
The contents of this note have been orally transmitted to the London
representative of the American interests concerned.
Respectfully yours,
[Enclosure]
The British Assistant Under Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs (Oliphant) to the American Chargé
(Atherton)
[London,] 23 December,
1932.
My Dear Atherton: We have made enquiries about
the point which you mentioned to Vansittart yesterday morning in connexion with
the question of the proposed Koweit Oil Concession.
As you know, it concerns a number of different Departments of His
Majesty’s Government and at every stage complicated
interdepartmental discussions have been necessary. As Vansittart told your
Ambassador in his letter of the 11th November, the document
embodying the result of the examination of the two draft
Concessions submitted by the Eastern and General Syndicate and
by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company respectively had, at that date,
been already despatched to the British Authorities in the
Persian Gulf. But I fear that the suggestion in Vansittart’s letter of the
11th November that this document would within a very short time
of its receipt by them be communicated to the Sheikh for his
consideration was somewhat over optimistic. Further
inter-departmental discussions have had to take place in the
interval, and have thus caused some further delay in the
communication of the document to the Sheikh.
I have now done all I can to speed matters up, and the local
British Authorities should now be in a position to proceed in
the matter with the Sheikh in the very near future.
I am so sorry for this recent and quite unexpected additional
delay which has arisen but which has now been terminated.
Yours sincerely,
