IOR/R/15/2/715

The file comprises copies of correspondence and other papers relating to the initial proposals for, and subsequent appointment and activities of, United States Naval Observers in Bahrain. Correspondents include: the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf (Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Geoffrey Prior); the Political Agent at Bahrain (Major Reginald George Evelin William Alban and Major Tom Hickinbotham); and various representatives of the Government of India, India Office, Foreign Office, and Combined Intelligence Service Iraq (CICI).

The file includes:

• correspondence dated between December 1940 and March 1941, in response to an application from the United States Chargé d’Affaires in London to Anthony Eden (then at the Foreign Office), dated 27 December 1940 (f 29) for the presence of a US Naval Observer at Bahrain. Subsequent correspondence records discussion of the application (and its consent) between officials in the British Government and the Government of India, the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, and the Political Agent at Bahrain. Points discussed include: the status of the Naval Observer in Bahrain; censorship and access to cypher facilities; British jurisdiction over the Naval Observer; the consent of the Ruler of Bahrain, Shaikh Ḥamad bin ‘Īsá Āl Khalīfah, to the application (ff 3-32);
• telegrams and correspondence, dated June 1941, relating to the loss with no survivors of an aircraft, travelling between Baghdad and Basra, on which the US Naval Observer at Bahrain, Lieutenant Commander George W Grove, was travelling, to take up his post in Bahrain (ff 34-39);
• correspondence dated between August and November 1941, relating to Grove’s replacement, Lieutenant (J.G.) [Junior Grade] Derwood W Lockard: his appointment, arrival in Bahrain, and the US Naval Department’s desire to transfer his post to Basra, and possibly later on to Khorramshahr in Iran (ff 40-52);
• correspondence dated October 1943 and September 1944, relating to British naval officials’ observations and reports on the presence and activities of US Naval Observers in Bahrain, including a report marked Top Secret, prepared by the Security officer at Bahrain (Captain A C Campbell) dated 3 August 1944, on American intelligence activities at Bahrain, and their primary interest in oil production (ff 61-62), and a letter from the Senior Naval Officer in the Persian Gulf (Commodore John Montagu Howson) to the Commander-in-Chief of the Eastern Fleet, dated 27 September 1944, commenting on the American presence in the Gulf, its apparent commercial as well as military nature, with profiles of a number of US individuals encountered by the Senior Naval Officer (ff 64-66).