Oil of the Middle East

Report Outline
Truman Doctrine and the Question of Oil
Struggle for Oil Reserves of Middle East
American Petroleum Policy in Middle East
Special Focus

Truman Doctrine and the Question of Oil

Greek Aid Program and Security of Oil Reserves

President Truman's program to extend American assistance to Greece and Turkey has stimulated discussion of the interest of the United States in the vast petroleum resources of the Middle East. Critics of the President's proposals were quick to detect “the smell of oil” and to charge that the program was intended primarily to protect rich oil concessions held by American and British corporations and only secondarily to help free peoples resist Soviet pressure.

Some of the supporters of the Greek-Turkish program readily conceded that it would enhance the security of Middle East oil reserves. But they cited that fact as an additional reason for approving the program. In the House of Representatives, Mar. 26, Rep. Merrow (R., N. H.) asserted that failure to aid Greece and Turkey would result in Soviet control of the Mediterranean and the Middle East, and that Soviet control would imperil American oil interests in that region. He added that “In the event of future trouble the almost illimitable supply of oil in Arabia will be of paramount importance to our national defense.” On Apr. 1 Rep. Holifield (D., Calif.) observed that “The subject of oil …cannot be divorced from our consideration of the Greek-Turkish aid bill and we should openly acknowledge its involvement.”

Sen. O'Mahoney (D., Wyo.), chairman in the last Congress of a Special Committee Investigating Petroleum Resources, said on Mar. 17: