ABSTRACT
In the 1950s and most of the 1960s, Kuwait was an important British concern and an area of considerable interest to the United States. This was mainly due to its oil potential. Kuwait had the world's largest oil reserves and was ranked fourth in world oil production. Kuwait's oil production assumed a substantial significance in the early 1950s. The nationalization of Iranian oil in 1951 and the subsequent Western boycott of Iranian oil created heavy demand for Kuwait's oil. Therefore, British firms and personnel dominated development planning in Kuwait (Joyce 1998). The al-Sabah family favoured the presence of both the British and the Americans in Kuwait in the 1950s.
