Remembering Saud

Remembering Prince Saud Al Faisal bin Abdulaziz 1940-2015

By Ford Fraker

It was May 2007, and I was a newly minted U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia having my first official meeting with Prince Saud Al Faisal bin Abdulaziz, the Saudi foreign minister, son of King Faisal and grandson of the founder of Saudi Arabia, King Abdulaziz bin Mohammed Al Saud. While U.S.-Saudi relations in this post-9/11 era were somewhat uncertain, security cooperation was ironclad. This meant that as ambassador, I had frequent interactions with top Saudi officials, and nurturing those relationships was paramount to my job.

I had looked forward to this meeting with great anticipation but equal trepidation. At the time, Prince Saud was the longest-serving foreign minister—not just of Saudi Arabia but anywhere in the world—in a role he held from 1975 until shortly before his death this year. What could I possibly say to someone with such vast experience in and knowledge of the whole Middle East and its many complicated issues? Certainly there couldn’t be a single subject he hadn’t debated and discussed from every possible angle. Plus, he had probably dealt with at least a dozen U.S. ambassadors already. What could I—a banker by trade and first-time diplomat—possibly add that he hadn’t already heard?

I knew from more than 30 years of banking, investment and finance in the Middle East that establishing a personal relationship was important, so I led the meeting with a comment about soccer. As a schoolboy living in Princeton, New Jersey, I used to ride my bike through the Princeton campus and past the sports fields to get home every day after school. I had heard about the “Saudi prince” who was an undergraduate at the university and played on the soccer team. So I stopped and watched him play. At our meeting, I also mentioned that he was in the same class and eating club as my older brother. Well, the rest of the conversation was spent with him reminiscing about his days at Princeton, how difficult they had been, how at one point he had wanted to leave, but his father, King Faisal, traveled to campus to convince him to stay “for the family’s honor and for his own self esteem.” It was clear he was glad to have stuck it out and graduated. And it was also clear that we had gotten off to a good start in our relationship.

I was always amazed at Prince Saud’s great sense of humor: It was sophisticated and often sardonic. Soon after our first meeting, we found ourselves together in the Saudi city of Tabuk, where Vice President Dick Cheney was meeting King Abdullah. After a sumptuous banquet—with servers standing behind every chair to ensure that whenever the slightest bit of empty plate appeared, it was immediately filled with more food—the king and the vice president retired for private talks. The rest of the official party, including Prince Saud and I, went to a large reception room to wait for the principals to finish their meeting. I was sitting next to the prince, who turned to me and asked if I had heard the joke about the CIA agent’s trip to Russia. A great tale ensued—told with resplendent detail and concluding with the CIA’s total incompetence as the punchline. He laughed uproariously. I soon found out that U.S. government incompetence was a never-ending source for jokes throughout the Middle East.

Another time, I had returned from one of my many trips to far-flung regions and towns of Saudi Arabia—where I would go to talk to local chambers of commerce about U.S.-Saudi business—and went to meet Prince Saud back in Riyadh. He said he had been watching my progress in the press, and was impressed that I was visiting towns he had never visited and was unlikely to. He had also seen pictures of me riding a camel and offered: “I have never ridden a camel because I believe that any creature made with a hump on its back was never meant to be ridden.” It was clearly not the first time he had delivered this line but, again, it was typical of his wry sense of humor.

Prince Saud and I worked closely together on many diplomatic and bilateral issues. We met often at his house, an oasis of calm and elegance with mostly French furnishings and art reflecting his sophisticated tastes. His small private den was his favorite space, full of pictures of his father and his family. He was deeply committed to the U.S.-Saudi relationship and believed that this relationship was the key to solving many problems in the region. But in these private moments after more official meetings, he could be very critical of American policies. He often expressed criticism of the U.S. involvement in Iraq, lack of even-handedness in Palestine and, later on, U.S. engagement with Iran. On more than one occasion, after meetings with senior U.S. officials, particularly regarding Palestine and Israel, he pulled me aside into a private room and emphasize, “Only you, the U.S. government, can make this happen.”

Our most candid exchanges often occurred in these more private moments. After First Lady Laura Bush met with the king to discuss her breast cancer awareness initiative in the Middle East, Prince Saud grabbed me by the arm and took me into a side room. He looked me in the eye and said, “Now I know the strength of America … it is your women!” I replied, “Your Royal Highness, it could be yours, too.” He only smiled.

When President George W. Bush visited Saudi Arabia in May 2008, we signed six bilateral agreements: three on nuclear cooperation, a critical infrastructure protection program, a science and technology agreement, and a five-year mutual visa protocol. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Princes Naif and Saud signed the accords in the presence of the king and the president in the king’s palace. After the signing ceremony, it was Prince Saud who was first to congratulate me, saying, “This is a great day in our relationship, one we can all be proud of.” In fact, none of these agreements would have been possible without the complete support of Prince Saud. Throughout his career, he was always well aware of the critical importance of the U.S.-Saudi relationship.

There are many private stories about Prince Saud’s personal kindness and generosity. Publicly, he will be best remembered as the consummate gentleman-diplomat, and his loss leaves a stunning gap in the field of Middle East policy and diplomacy. His wisdom and wit will be sorely missed, and his experience over the decades made him an icon. For me, the opportunity to work closely with a man of such scope, vision and humanity was an undeniable privilege.