Word: saud
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...recent months 62-year-old King Saud of Saudi Arabia has suffered a succession of intestinal, stomach, chest, circulatory and heart ailments. Often they seem to be aggravated by the swirling political events in his desert capital of Riyadh. After the Yemen rebellion last fall threatened the stability of his throne, Saud's health was so upset that he turned the government over to his able brother, Prince Feisal, and flew to Switzerland for treatment...
...While Saud spent weeks convalescing in Paris and on the Riviera, Prince Feisal was using a new broom at home. He fired all of Saud's sons and aides who held government posts, and cut royal family allowances a whopping 20%. In a series of speeches, Feisal told wide-eyed citizens: "With God's help, you and your government are going the right way. Education, medical care and social security are all completely free...
...answer to doleful pleas from his sons and relations, King Saud cautiously returned home last month. A few tribal delegations came to Riyadh to pay their respects. One, led by Deputy Premier Prince Khalid, another of Saud's 39 brothers, handed the King an ultimatum. Tactfully but plainly, the chieftains warned him not to interfere with Feisal or make any attempt again to wield power, at the risk of dethronement. They also demanded instant banishment of Saud's personal aide, Eid ben Salem, who rose from palace chauffeur to royal entrepreneur and became vastly rich in the process...
...Saud caved in. Ordered out of the country, Ben Salem, who has his fortune stashed in European banks, flew off nonchalantly to Beirut. Forty-eight hours later, Saud got an even worse shock: one of his favorite wives, handsome Princess Im Mansour, vanished from the palace to join her lover, Ben Salem, in exile. The personal and political blows combined to impair the regal health once again. Moslem pilgrims to Mecca who were booked on half a dozen jet flights home suddenly found their passages had been canceled. Instead, the airliners flew to Riyadh, picked up the ailing King...
...strict a Moslem is he that he prays toward Mecca five times a day, allows none of his employees to drink, smoke or eat pork in his presence. Unimpressed by pomp, he treats peddlers, peasants and princes alike. He knows almost every Arab ruler from Ben Bella to King Saud, royally says of Jordan's King Hussein: "He is like one of my sons, but I tell him when he is wrong...