CONFIDENTIAL FOREIGN OFFICE, S.W.1. June 14, 1961, (BC 1022/1) We have, as often before, been thinking of how to try to build up the international standing of the Sultan of Muscat and Oman, e.g, by trying to induce him to join the Food and Agriculture Organisation and/or the World Health Organisation, and to make some friends in the world, including the Arab world iſ at all possible. 2. The prospects of success are not bright. We shall however, during the Sultan's annual period of residence in London this summer, try to bring home to him (a) that we have been much embarrassed in defending his cause in the United Nations against the united onslaught of the Arab delegations and against a good many Afro-Asians; (b) that there is a striking contrast between his own failure even to make a start with training Muscati officials or administrators who could speak on his behalf at home and abroad, and the activities of the handful of rebel leaders in publicising their cause in other capitals; (c) that he should grasp any chance of securing disinterested help and technical advice (e.g. teachers, and advisers on education, health and agriculture) from third governments without an axe to grind. 3. We might put to the Sultan that one way of establishing contacts with moderate Arab governments would be personal visits on his way back from London, probably in September. We should however first be grateful to know whether you think that he would be favourably received, or even whether an invitation might be issued to him. He is unlikely to condescend to defend his case on Oman (which he is inclined to consider nobody else's business). Nevertheless the Sultan's personality tends to impress most of those who meet him, and in any case he might at least convince his hosts that he is someone to be taken seriously and not merely a puppet or a creation of the British Government. /۰ T. F. Brenchley, Esq., Khartoum. CONFIDENTIAL
