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employees in my experience. It was interesting to me that, no matter
what education, job training or salary progression had been provided by
Aramco, when a strike was called not one single Arab employee walked
through the gates. I was familiar with strikes in the United States where,
out of loyalty to their employer, some people chose to go through picket
lines or remain within an industrial plant during the strike and continue
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picket lines – employees simply didn’t show up for work. Whether it
was a question of unwillingness to support a foreign (American) man-
agement on the part of Arab employees I do not know. My own conclu-
sion was that Arabs were unwilling to endure social pressure from fel-
low Arabs by working during the strike. The strike only lasted two days
and American employees continued to work throughout the time.

The Palestinian employees, who numbered perhaps 5 percent of
the total, had seen unions, strikes, and mass action in Palestine. Whether
some of the Palestinians were Communist, as was alleged by some, I
do not know. In any event, the Palestinians clearly became instigators
of action against the company. Many of them were unhappy with Saudi
government for a variety of reasons, but they dared not take any action
against the government directly. Aramco was the source of 95 percent
of the government’s revenue, so they decided that the best way to pres-
sure the government was to pressure Aramco. Sometimes these actions
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was very proud of the fact that about 75 percent of the Ras Tanura Saudi
Arab employees were attending free schools that we operated at night.
We took very seriously our obligation under the Concession Agreement
to train and develop Saudi Arabs to skilled positions in the company.
Some of the Palestinians stirred up employees to refuse to attend school
because the schools were not air-conditioned. At the time, we were de-
signing a new school building, which was shortly to be built, and it was
to be air-conditioned. In this case, the Arabs milled about the school
area, but did not attend classes. I was able to secure a commitment from
our management that we would move in portable buildings to serve as
air-conditioned classrooms until our new concrete block school build-

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