become a singularly important oil-producing country. : of hindsight, the negotiator for APOC in the Kuwait the 1930s continued to explain the behaviour of the company in non-commercial terms. In his study on The First the great strides made by Holmes with the ruler of Kuwait by June not a drop of oil had been found anywhere on the Arab side of the Gulf the Wall Street slump of 1929 and the concurrent world glut of oil had led the major international oil companies to other oil

doi:10.4324/9780203038017-182

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become a singularly important oil-producing country.

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ABSTRACT

JOHNBULL'SFACE:1932-1939 In1938,anarticlebyJeromeBeattyentitled'IsJohnBull'sFaceRed!' appearedinTheAmericanMagazine.Itwaswrittenintheformof anexposeaboutan'embarrassingBritishsecret-howAmericans beatthemtoafarawayislandofoil'(Bahrain).Beattywouldhave beensurprisedtolearnthatthegreatcommercialsuccessofBAPCO, whichhadaprofitof$8millionin1938,didnotseemtoworry thoseBritishofficialsinchargeofBahrainandtheotherGulfstates. Theiroverridingconcernwashownottolosepoliticalcontroltothe Americans.