Defending the 'postwar petroleum order': The US, Britain and the 1954 Saudi-Onassis Tanker deal

During the early Cold War, Britain and the US fashioned a set of arrangements described collectively in this article as the 'postwar petroleum order', which appropriated Persian Gulf oil to fuel European reconstruction and defence. When Saudi Arabia organized a state oil-tanker company with Aristotle Onassis in 1954, it challenged the terms of those arrangements. The affair provides a case study in contrasting British and American approaches towards oil diplomacy and Arab nationalism. Whereas London crusaded for an Anglo-American campaign to abolish the Saudi-Onassis company, Washington wanted the Arabian-American Oil Company to accomplish the same objective by providing financial incentives to King Sa'ud's government.