125.0090B/4–2149
The Secretary of State to the Embassy in the United Kingdom
No. 192
The Secretary of State refers to the Department’s telegram No. 797 dated March 8, 1948,1 informing the Embassy that the Department had under consideration establishing a Consulate in the Shaikhdom of Kuwait and requesting the Embassy to ascertain whether the British Government, which enjoys a special treaty relationship with the Shaikhdom, would be agreeable to the establishment of such an office.
In its responsive telegram No. 1581 of April 16, 1948,1 the Embassy quoted the following text of a letter dated April 15, 1948, addressed to the Embassy by the Eastern Department of the Foreign Office:
“We fully appreciate the desire of State Department to provide routine consular services for US citizens in Kuwait and are anxious to meet their wishes. We feel that most practical way of providing facilities which State Department requires would be to arrange, on analogy of arrangements existing at Bahrein, the US consular representative in Basra should perform consular functions in Kuwait on an informal basis and without exequatur. This would mean that he would not be officially appointed or described as US Consul in Kuwait but we hope that you would not regard this as serious disadvantage. In view of our special treaty relationship with the Sheikh, the channel through which US consular representative would conduct relations with the Sheikh and other authorities of Kuwait State would be our political agent. Latter would, of course, do everything possible to help your consular representative and to ensure that interests of US citizens are fully cared for.
If these arrangements are acceptable to the State Department and you will let us know, we will at once send necessary instructions to our authorities in Persian Gulf to put them into effect and to give every possible help to US consular representative at Basra in carrying out his functions in Kuwait.”
The Embassy explained that the British Government was unwilling to weaken the special treaty relationship which it enjoys with Kuwait and feared that should an American Consulate be established in Kuwait demands for similar facilities would be made by Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, and possibly Soviet Russia. The Foreign Office believed that a fair trial should be given the procedure suggested in its letter of April 15, whereby the American Consul at Basra would undertake informal consular representation in Kuwait though remaining resident at Basra.
The Consul at Basra has for a considerable period been endeavoring to perform consular services for the, large American community in Kuwait by correspondence and by visits to Kuwait on a monthly basis. Notwithstanding the sincerity and extent of the Consul’s endeavors, his experience has shown that the arrangement is unsatisfactory, and that it is inherently incapable of working satisfactorily. The needs for having a Consul resident in Kuwait are real, urgent and immediate. They have been brought repeatedly to the attention of the Department during the past year by the Gulf Oil Company which has a fifty-percent interest in the Kuwait Oil Company’s concession in Kuwait, covering the largest proven petroleum reserves of any field in the Near East. More recently the American Independent Oil Company, a wholly American concern which has obtained an oil concession for the Shaikh of Kuwait’s undivided half interest in the so-called Kuwait-Saudi Arabian Neutral Zone, has also urgently requested the Department to establish a Consulate in Kuwait so that routine consular services will be available to the large number of American employees and their families it will soon be sending to Kuwait.
The fundamental fact is that in Kuwait, as in every other area where such needs for consular services exist they must be handled by a resident consular officer personally and on a day-to-day basis. The following are examples of these needs:
- A.
- Citizenship Work: With hundreds of Americans already resident in the Kuwait district and additional large numbers expected to proceed there in connection with oil enterprises and construction programs, there is a constant demand for consular services of one sort or another in connection with passport matters. American passports are made valid for periods of two years or less and must be renewed or replaced thereafter. When an American community is first established overseas in connection with large-scale development projects as those in the Persian Gulf oil fields, experience has shown that at the outset most Americans are in possession of valid passports and during the first year or two their needs for passport services are relatively small. As time goes by, however, the demand for such services increases at a rate out of proportion to the number of people involved. Not only must passports be renewed and replaced, but amendments [Page 1568] must be made to show the inclusion or exclusion of members of families of the bearer arriving in or departing from the area, as well as to show births and deaths in such families. Consuls must document births and marriages on standard forms and on request be present as witness at marriage ceremonies. Each American citizen and the members of his family are likewise registered at the Consulate and card files are maintained showing their whereabouts. To endeavor to perform the paper work on such documentation by mail from a distant post is cumbersome, inefficient and, where the volume is large, almost wholly impracticable.
- B.
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Protection of American Citizens: The United States Government has the obligation to afford suitable protection to its citizens wherever they may reside, and it is often in this phase of consular work that physical presence of the consular officer is most urgently necessary. Cases have already arisen in Kuwait where American citizens have become involved in litigation or criminal processes, and it is logical to assume that with the steady increase in the number of Americans resident in Kuwait such cases will likewise tend to increase. This Government has acquiesced for the time being in the trial of American citizens before the Agency Court in Kuwait under the legal system established by British Orders in Council. However, regardless of the type of enforcement agency and court procedures which apply to such cases, it is the right of the accused to have ready access to such protection as a representative of the United States may appropriately extend to him. It seems self-evident that if such protection is to be available to the American citizens involved from the earliest moment of their need, such protection can only be afforded by an officer resident nearby. It is thought that the Government of the United Kingdom will recognize both the validity of this statement and the fact that it may be to the advantage of the local authorities, especially the Political Agent, to have close contact with the United States representative charged with such rights and obligations of protection.
In cases of wider emergency such as have engulfed the Near East many times in the past century and twice within a relatively recent period of years, the weighty responsibilities of this Government’s representative in the area can only be carried out if he is in close proximity to those whom he is charged with protecting. Here again it is believed that the British Government will recognize the mutual interest of our two governments in having effective American consular representation in Kuwait.
- C.
- Shipping and Seamen: At present more than a hundred American tankers are loaded with petroleum products in the harbor of Kuwait annually, and with the steadily increasing rate of production of oil in Kuwait it is anticipated that the number of tankers serving the port will also grow. Likewise, many merchant cargo vessels of American registry call at Kuwait each year. At present shipping services are performed by the Consul in Basra but, owing to the distance which separates him from the harbor of Kuwait, when absent from Kuwait he is unable to perform all the services required of him by law. Included in the list of services which he is precluded from performing are those with respect to the deposit of ship’s papers, which in some cases may seriously prejudice the fulfillment of other duties incumbent upon the officer. He is likewise unable to examine the ship’s [Page 1569] papers and to issue crew list visas. He is unable to sign discharged seamen off the articles and pay them the wages deposited by the master, as required by law. Other duties with respect to handling and affording relief to American seamen are made difficult, if not impossible, by virtue of the fact of his absence from the port. In so far as he endeavors to handle the documentation in connection with shipping and seamen by mail or by signing forms in blank he is deprived of the opportunity to examine each case personally to determine its bona fides, and may in fact by so doing be contravening the Foreign Service Regulations or Statutes of Congress. The special duties of consuls with respect to seamen were among the first imposed by Congress in providing for consular representation abroad, and the very nature of such duties in a port served by American ships requires the presence of the Consul.
- D.
- Documentation of Merchandise: A limited but growing volume of work is involved in documenting merchandise for shipment to the United States of goods produced in or transiting through the Shaikhdom. The issuance of consular invoices has hitherto been handled by mail but a resident consul would be in a much better position to insure that shipments are being prepared in conformity with United States customs and import regulations.
- E.
- Consular Reporting: Consuls are charged by law with submission of reports on the above-mentioned matters and on other equally important subjects affecting our economic and commercial relations with the area. The importance of the American economic interest in Kuwait has already been mentioned and is of such magnitude as to require no further emphasis. The Department of State and other interested agencies of the United States Government require reports from Consuls. These reports cover a wide variety of subjects, such as financial conditions, crop conditions, basic economic trends, character of commercial activity, recommended types of trading practices and agency connections, and many other related matters. The volume and extent of consular reporting on Kuwait has thus far been necessarily limited by the inability of the Consul to maintain constant touch with local conditions arising from the fact of his residence in Basra instead of Kuwait. The increasing scope of American business activity in Kuwait makes it imperative that the volume and quality of consular reporting on the Kuwait district be improved.
- F.
- Relations with American Companies and with Local Officials: The present practice of assigning to the Consul in Basra the duty of maintaining contact with the representatives of American companies in Kuwait and with local officials has prevented the development of that intimate working relationship so essential to the American interests involved as well as to the Governments of the United States and the United Kingdom. A case in point is that of the dispute which has arisen over the islands off the coast of Kuwait and the Kuwait Neutral Zone, involving two American companies, the American Independent Oil Company and the Gulf Oil Company which owns half interest in the Kuwait Oil Company. The Department believes that it would have greatly facilitated the satisfactory settlement of this dispute had an American consular representative been resident in Kuwait and working in close cooperation with the parties in dispute as well as with the Political Agent. However, it is also on matters of [Page 1570] a more routine nature which when added together form an even greater justification for the establishment of a Consulate in Kuwait. The day-to-day problems are many and growing and in the spirit of the Anglo-American conversations on economic and cultural cooperation in the Near East held in Washington in October 1947 it is believed that an American consular officer will be of great value in helping to work out the harmonious development of our commercial relations in Kuwait. In the course of executing his duties, the Consul will, of course, have regard for the special treaty relationship existing between the United Kingdom and the Shaikh of Kuwait.
In view of the foregoing, you should renew the Embassy’s previous request to the British Government for its acquiescence in the establishment of an American consular office in Kuwait. In discussing the subject with the Foreign Office, the Embassy should convey the Department’s view that the establishment of an American Consulate in Kuwait would not adversely affect the existing British relations with Kuwait but on the contrary would work to the long-range mutual advantage of the United States and the United Kingdom. You may also point out that requests from other states for the establishment of consulates in Kuwait could still be refused on the just ground that they lack tangible interests in Kuwait comparable to those of the United States.
With reference to the Foreign Office’s analogy between the provision of consular facilities at Kuwait and Bahrein, the Embassy should point out that the handling of our consular needs at Bahrein by the Consulate in Dhahran is an inconvenient and unsatisfactory arrangement and one which we would not wish to duplicate in Kuwait where the demand for American consular services is greater and more pressing.
In view of the constantly growing American interests in Kuwait, it is hoped that the Government of the United Kingdom will agree that the request of the United States for consular representation there arises from normal and legitimate needs, and will accord this request its full approval.