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being not enough. The Party also went on to explain its stance on every issue in

minute detail, repeating the same ideas it had outlined in its earlier memorandum,

in a letter spread over ten pages. 293 Gault offered his opinion to the Residency on

the HEC’s response, saying that it ‘brings forward no new argument which would

warrant our answering it on the Foreign Secretary’s behalf’. 294 Burrows further

believed that the entire and only point of the HEC’s response was to ‘have the last

word’. 295

On the regional scene the Turco-Iraqi Pact finally saw light on 24 February

when it was signed by both parties. Nuri represented the Iraqis and Adnan

Menderes, the Prime Minister of Turkey, represented the Turks. The Pact officially

linked an Arab State, (Iraq) to NATO via Turkey. 296 The signing of the Pact was seen

as the first step towards formulating the Northern Tier defence alliance.

Meanwhile in late February in Bahrain Edward Skinner of BAPCO’s

management informed the Residency that Al-Bakir’s (unnamed) cousin had told the

company’s Security Department in Awali of a plot to mount demonstrations starting

on 1 April. The demonstrations would run for three consecutive days. If the

demonstrations failed to produce the nationalists’ desired outcomes, the

assassination of a member of the ruling family and a European was to be carried out.

The reason as to why the cousin had uncovered the alleged plot was his disapproval

293 TNA, FO 371/114586, The High Executive Committee, Bahrain, Reference no. 137/55m, 29 March
1955.
294 TNA, FO 10165/386, Gault to Burrows, 28 April 1955.
295 ‘Bernard Burrows, Residency’s Monthly Report for May 1955’, in Political Diaries of the Persian
Gulf, vol. 20 1955-1958, ed. R.L. Jarman (London: 1990), 1-5 (2).
296 BDEEP, Series B, Part III, vol. 4, ‘Egypt and the Defence of the Middle East’ 1953-1956. Doc. 583:
FO 371/115497, [Turco-Iraqi pact]: inward dispatch no 69 from R A Beaumont to FO on the history
of the pact’s creation, 9 March 1955.

© Hamad E. Abdulla 99