Feb. 14 marks the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the US alliance with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. On Feb. 14, 1945, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt met with King Abdul-Aziz bin Abdul Rahman Al Saud in Egypt and the two forged a partnership that has endured despite occasional severe strains for the last 70 years. It faces a rocky future ahead.
The meeting was a closely held secret for security reasons. Only a handful on each side knew it was coming. FDR and Ibn Saud met on the USS Quincy, a cruiser, in the Great Bitter Lake along the Suez Canal, as World War II was coming to an end. FDR arrived from the Yalta summit with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Roosevelt’s health was very poor; he had only weeks to live. Ibn Saud had come from Jeddah on an American destroyer, the USS Murphy, with an entourage of bodyguards, cooks, slaves, an astrologer, a fortune-teller and other retainers and some sheep. The king only reluctantly agreed to leave his wives behind in Jeddah. It was his first trip outside the Arabian Peninsula aside from a brief visit to Basra in Iraq. The two agreed to work together to ensure stability in the post-war Middle East. The United States would ensure security for the kingdom, and the Saudis would ensure access to their oil fields. The United States acquired use of Dhahran air base for operations in the Middle East. US oil companies were already operating in the kingdom. Saudi Arabia declared war on Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan two weeks later, securing a seat in the United Nations.
When Churchill learned of the meeting, he insisted on seeing Ibn Saud as well. During their luncheon meeting Churchill smoked and drank champagne. The Saudis felt insulted. FDR had smoked his cigarette during a break by himself.
The Quincy summit was carefully planned in advance. Ibn Saud’s son Prince Faisal, the future king, had visited the United States in November 1943 to begin the courtship. Faisal stayed at Blair House while meeting with Roosevelt and senior executive and legislative officials. Faisal was only 36 but he had been serving as his father’s top diplomat since 1919, when he traveled to London to discuss the future of the region after World War I when he was 12 years old. After visiting Washington, Faisal traveled to Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Colorado, Michigan, New York, New Jersey and Maryland before flying to London. It was during Faisal’s visit that the plans for the Dhahran air base were agreed and the United States began providing military assistance to the kingdom.
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