January 26, 1954. 2181/1G) SECRET We have been engaged in what I am afraid became a very protracted correspondence with the Commonwealth Relations Office, who in turn consulted Delhi and Karachi as well as the Security Service, about the screening of Indians and Pakistanis seeking employment with the Bahrain Petroleum Company, to which your letter 2183/13/53 of June 20, 1953 to Denis Greenhill referred. The conclusion that has been reached is that the Company's purposes should be sufficiently well served if they themselves, through their agents in Bombay and Karachi, were to seek the co-operation of the local police authorities in this matter. We understand that the Anglo-Iranian 011 Company have been able to get reports from the Pakistan police on the antecedents of the people they recruit, and it seems probable that Caltex could do the same for the Bahrain Petroleum Company. The Security Liaison Officers at New Delhi and Karachi agree in finding that the Central Security Records in each country tend to concentrate on Communist leaders who are not people likely to apply for service in the oil companies. For records of minor Communists both India and Pakistan appear to rely on the local police. It appears for example that no adverse security trace has yet been found among the many hundreds of names of recruits for the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company which were checked against the Central Security Records of India and Pakistan. It seems therefore that what is required is a routine police check rather than a "political" one and direct liaison between Caltex and the local police forces should therefore meet the case. In these circumstances the Commonwealth Relations Office would prefer not to approach the Indian and Pakistan Governments on behalf of the Bahrain Petroleum Company, it being an American concern in everything but the technicality of registration. (C. T. E. Ewart-Biggs) C. M. LeQuesne, Esq., Bahrain.
