Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1944, The Near East, South Asia, and Africa, The Far East, Volume V

891.6363/7–744: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Chargé in Iran (Ford)

Washington, July 7, 1944—8 p.m.

411. Military Attaché⁹⁸ Tehran has informed the War Department that the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company has reportedly applied to the Iranian Government to buy the land at Abadan⁹⁹ on which the United States air field, camp and assembly plant have been built. Such a purchase, it is thought, would be a serious blow to the large American investment involved and to eventual postwar rights on the fields.

Please give the Department urgently any information you may obtain on this subject.

Hull

98. Col. Joseph K. Baker.
99. Island 40 miles long by 2 to 12 miles wide in the Shatt-al-Arab delta in western Iran; the town of Abadan on the island is the terminus of the oil pipe line from Masjid-i-Sulaiman, one of the important oil fields of western Iran, and has large oil refineries.