Page 55 - The Origins of the United Arab Emirates_Neat

The Aftermath of War: Perpetuation of Control 3'

The Medical Officer on the 'Crucial Coast

The appointment of a Medical Officer on the Trucial Coast in i
1938 was the direct outcome of a search for means to combat
the influence of American missionary doctors at a time when there
were fears that American oil interests might try to gain a foothold
on the Coast. The appointment had originally been suggested in
1935 by Colonel Loch, Political Agent in Bahrain, who had been
startled by the American missionaries’ renewed interest in Qatar
and the Trucial Coast.
The missionaries were attached to the Arabian Mission, which
had been founded in 1889 in the United Stales. Although the
Mission was an independent project, it had tics with the Reformed
Church, which later took it under its wing. Much of the work !:
done was medical, and, although the missionaries did not establish
any hospital on the Trucial Coast, there was one at Matrah in
Muscat and another in Bahrain to which patients from the Coast
went.53 The work of the missionaries was humane and of great
value, especially as the British authorities had made no attempt II
to establish any form of medical service; the only hospitals in
the Gulf area were those of the missionaries.54 Their personal influence
was consequently so great that they won respect, if not proselytes,
up and down the Arab coast of the Gulf. ‘Thus before the oil
men came, Americans had won regard in Arab eyes, for there
is no doubt that something was added to the repute of the West
on these coasts by the devotion of American doctors in Arabia.’55
Until the advent of oil, the American missionaries were respected
and admired by the British authorities as well, and cordial relations
existed. The attitude changed after 1933, when the Standard Oil
Company of California (Socal) obtained an oil concession from j!
King I bn Sa‘ud of Saudi Arabia. No longer regarded as apolitical,
the missionaries began to be viewed with suspicion by the Resident
and his Agents, who feared that the influence of these Americans
might be deployed in the subtle intrigues that were widespread
in the battle for oil concessions. When, in 1935, Doctor Storm
of the American Mission applied for permission to visit Sharjah,
Loch at once suspected the motives of the visit. He reported that
Storm and Doctor Dame, also of the Mission, had recently spent
some time in Qatar; and, although he admitted lack of proof,
he connected their presence there with the interest shown in that
shaykhdom by Socal, and suggested that they might have tried
to persuade the ruler to give his oil rights to that company.
In order to contain any possible American intrigue, Loch argued,
a British medical officer would have to be provided for the Coast,
and he urged Fowle to petition for it.56 The Government of India,