Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi Who Was Washingtons Wisest Ally - Daily Beast
Saudi Prince Saud al-Faisal bin Abd Al Aziz Al Saud, who died early Friday at age 75, was the kingdom’s foreign minister for 40 years. Prince Saud was the son of King Faisal who presided over a critical transition in the 1960s and ’70s. The kingdom’s founder, Ibn Saud, died in 1953 and left the throne to a son who was not up to the job. Over several years, Faisal outmaneuvered that brother, secured the backing of the Wahhabi clerics and the rest of the family, and took power in 1964. King Faisal ruled over a decade that saw a huge rise in oil prices and the transformation of... He sent his son Saud al-Faisal to Princeton for his education and groomed him to be a diplomat. The king had served as Ibn Saud’s foreign emissary from the age of 12, traveling in 1919 to Europe to represent the kingdom. Prince Saud became foreign minister in 1975, after his father was assassinated for bringing television into the country, a move that alienated religious fanatics. I knew Saud al-Faisal for many years. In the dangerous days after Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, he helped President George H. W. Bush put together the coalition that defended Saudi Arabia and liberated Kuwait. Source: www.thedailybeast.com
