The Anglo-Iranian Oil Crisis has been widely studied from the perspective of the
main actors involved, namely Iran, Britain and the United States. Yet, the
perspective of countries that had no interest in Iranian oil has received little
attention. The diplomatic staff of neutral countries in Tehran observed"theconflict,
and the events to which it gave rise, largely as bystanders. Hence one would expect
them to have viewed the situation somewhat differently from whose whom were
directly il}volved. Switzerland was one such country. Therefore, its view of the
situation at the time may shed new light on the great powers struggle for Iranian oil.
In particular, while the neutral image of Switzerland might have given the
impression to both sides of the conflict that it would probably make a suitable
intermediary for certain purposes, we shall see below that - although the Swiss were
not to keen to get involved in the crisis itself - their attitude towards nationalisation
of Iranian oil was far from unbiased. In this paper we shall first review the Swiss
perception of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Crisis between 1951 and 1953. Secondly, we
shall outline the Swiss role as a go-between on the diplomatic as well as economic
levels during the oil crisis.