Page 163 - Begrave Thesis_Neat

themselves, as revolutionaries’. To Gault the process of internal reform ‘has gone as

far as it should for the time being’. The Agent viewed that it was now time for the

politicians to prove themselves in the space so far allotted to them before further

political concessions were awarded. 439 The FO in response to Gault’s views set their

policy regarding developments in Bahrain via a letter signed by Sir Derek Riches, the

newly appointed Head of the Eastern Department at the FO, 440 on behalf of the

Foreign Secretary. The FO believed that a wait-and-see approach should be taken in

light of developments. Further, the FO agreed with Gault’s proposal to see how the

new channels of expression were utilised by the reformers before other changes

took place. 441

The HEC introduced the new post of President of the HEC in December. The

Party awarded the post to Kamal-el-Deen, a Shi’ite cleric and frontline member. 442 It

is not clear whether the position of President was superior or inferior to that of Al-

Bakir’s post as Secretary. It was more likely a move by the HEC to regain some of its

Shi’ite members who had abandoned the Party earlier than a radical change in the

Party’s structure.

Britain continued to try expanding the Baghdad Pact and it attempted to

bring into the alliance the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. King Hussein bin Talal of

439 TNA, FO 371/114587, Gault to FO, 28 November 1955.
440 Sir Derek Riches was born in 1912. He served Britain as a diplomat chiefly in the Middle Eastern
region. He earned his education from University College London and University College School. He
was appointed in Lebanon in 1934 and had since served in a number of countries that included
Egypt, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan. He was made in 1955 the FO’s Head of the Eastern
Department. He remained in that position for four years and was later assigned as an Ambassador to
Libya, Congo, and Lebanon. Riches passed away on 1 October 1997. See I. Lucas, ‘Obituary: Sir
Derek Riches’, Asian Affairs, 29:1, (1998), 127.
441 TNA, FO 371/114587, D.M.H. Riches at FO to Residency, 23 December 1955.
442 ‘Bernard Burrows, Residency’s Report for the Month of December 1955’, 1-8 (3).

© Hamad E. Abdulla 142