The conclusion of World War II in 1945 found Libya in a sorry state. With a literacy rate of only 6 percent, an untrained labor force, and the most productive farmlands owned by Italian settlers, Libya was in a poor position to regain its independence. While exporting some tobacco, olive oil, dates, and carpets, the main source of Libyan revenue during the postwar years derived from selling vast amounts of scrap metal reclaimed from military vehicles and equipment littering the desert after World War II. However, a profusion of active land mines and bombs were also left behind as a grim legacy of the war.
In November, 1949, the United Nations passed a resolution that called for Libya to become independent by January, 1952. During this interim period, Idris Sanusi, an indecisive person who had lived much of his life outside Libya, became king of Cyrenaica and was designated heir to the Libyan throne. A lingering problem was the common view that he was a front man for Great Britain.
By 1952 a constitutional monarchy was in place, with a federal structure allowing each of Libya's three provinces to manage its own internal affairs. The king was empowered to dissolve parliament, and frequently used this power. To reduce provincial animosity Libya had two capitals: Tripoli served as national capital during the winter months, and Benghazi during the summer. For defense a small army was created; however, the best military equipment was reserved for the Cyrenaica Defense Force, which protected the king against assassination and coup attempts mounted by the regular army.
As ruler of one of the poorest nations in the world, King Idris rented military bases to Great Britain in December, 1953, to gain annual rental funds. The following year, the United States made a similar rental contract for the building of Wheelus Field, then the largest U. S. military base outside the United States. Thus Libya went from the scrap metal business into property rental. In 1956 contracts were granted to two American companies to resume Italy's aborted attempt to find oil in 1940.
In April, 1959, Esso-Libya announced that a vast amount of low-sulfur oil had been found beneath the Sirte Desert at Zelten, and that work would start on an oil pipeline. By September, 1961, oil began to flow out of Libya, and vast financial resources began to flow into the Idris monarchy. Since Libya's federal system complicated both his own and oil company profits, Idris ended it in 1963 by turning Libya's government into a unitary system. By 1969, when Idris was toppled from power, Libya already ranked as the world's fourth-largest oil producer.
World History
