The historical significance　of the Mossadegh Administration, which nationalized the petroleum industries in Iran was that it presides over a period of democracy and secularized nationalism, and in that it was during this period of the cold war that hegemony in the area was trasforred from Great Britain to the U.S. However, because resarch thus far has been influenced by the nationality of the researcher and the criteria used for selection of diplomatic documents used in the research, a complet e picture of the Administration has yet to be drawn. The period of the Administration has been viewd as simply one aspect of a crumbling British Empire or a typical example of United States diplomacy where the logic of the cold war took priority. Some researchers merely create a heroic sentimental image of Mossadegh Administration which was toppled by a coup d'etat.

We can, therefore, regard the work of Dr. Mary Ann Heiss (Empire and Nationhood: The United States, Great Britain and Iranian Oil, 1951-1954, , publised in 1997 by Columbia Univ. Press) as a new type of the investigation because she understands the petroleum conflict in Iran objectively through the historical perspective of international relations and remarks on the problems of cultural prejudice related to it.

Although in Iran, Mossadegh Administration has generally been seen in a negative light since the period just before the Iranian Revolution, it is worthy of note that some studies after the revolution have revaluated the political roles of ulamas during that time and found that the religious leaders made more significant contributions to the movement toward the nationalization of petroleum industries than the Mossadegh Administration.

I believe that it is necessary to investigate these issues further with a focus on the following problems: