Page 394 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

The ‘Sling’ 391

visited Saudi Arabia, whether politician, bureaucrat or military officer, to the
Saudi view of Middle-Eastern politics and of the Arab-Israeli question in
particular. A notable instance of this practice came to light during the hearings

of the sub-committee on multinational corporations of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee in June 1974. It seems that in January 1973, while he was
still director of the office of fuels and energy at the State Department, James
Akins had invited the ARAMCO lobbyist in Washington, Michael Ameen, to
his home, where he had told him in confidence that John Erlichman, the
presidential assistant, might be visiting Saudi Arabia the following April. The

transcript of the hearings goes on: ‘Akins wanted Ameen to tell Yamani it was
very important that he, Yamani, take Erlichman under his wing and see to it
that Erlichman was given the message we Saudis love you people but your
American policy is hurting us.’
A week after their conversation with Faisal in Geneva, Hedlund, iMcQuinn,
De Crane and Moses went to Washington to pass on the king’s warning to the
Nixon administration. They spoke to the assistant secretary for Near-Eastern
affairs at the State Department, Joseph J. Sisco, to the acting secretary of
defence, William Clements, and to members of the presidential staff at the
White House. Their representations met with a sceptical reception. Although

the depth of Faisal’s feeling over the Arab-Israeli question was acknowledged,
there was no disposition to believe that a drastic move on his part was immi­
nent. There was no need, it was felt, for the United States to do any more than
what was already being done to prevent such a move. Faisal was crying wolf
where none prowled. Saudi Arabia in the past, so the official thinking went,
had been subjected to far greater pressure from Nasser than she was now’

experiencing from Sadat: she had successfully withstood such pressure then,
and no doubt she would do so on the present occasion.
The administration’s scepticism probably had another source. ARAMCO’s
real solicitude was not for the Arab-Israeli dispute per se, or for the direction
and emphasis of United States policy in the Middle East, or even for the
susceptibilities of the Saudi government. The company’s real preoccupation
was with the rate at which it could extract oil from the Saudi Arabian fields.
Ultimately, of course, it was solicitous for its own concession, though it was

confident that if the Saudis ever evinced a serious intention to revoke it
unilaterally, the United States government would intervene on the company’s
behalf. Moreover, the value of the concession had already been reduced by the
Saudi government’s decision to acquire a substantial interest in the company’s
assets and operations, a decision to which ARAMCO was becoming increas­
ingly resigned. To this extent, therefore, Faisal’s veiled threat about the
company s ‘losing everything’ could be viewed less as the writing on the wall
than as a tactical move, designed to spur ARAMCO’s parent companies into

using their influence in Washington to bring about a change in American
policy towards Israel, while providing them at the same time with a plausible