Inside the Mirage: America's Fragile Partnership with Saudi Arabia
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"The relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia has always been a marriage of convenience, not affection. In a bargain cemented by President Roosevelt and Saudi Arabia’s founding king in 1" The Washington Post Lippman skillfully excavates the subsequent Saudi-American modus vivendi in the mid-20th century, a period that now seems as remote and innocent as a flickering home movie from Eisenhower's America. Lippman has done pioneering research on the early days of Aramco, the American company that more or less single-handedly created the oil business in Arabia. Some of the pictures he has found to illustrate that era are as eloquent as the interviews he conducted with the Americans who lived in the Saudi kingdom at the time: black-and-white photos of happy American faces at an Aramco cocktail party in 1950 (no Arabs in view), Aramco wives from the same year kicking up their heels in can-can dresses at some amateur theatrical event and Aramco executives dressed in sober suits sitting down in a tent to share a "goat grab" with their Saudi hosts. — Peter Bergen
AcknowledgmentsVIIA Note on Arabic Words and NamesIXPrologue11The Pioneers72Into the Wilderness393Little America554Arabs and Attitudes715Funny Money976The Little Screen1117Come Fly With Me1238A Ford in Their Past1379The American Way15510Down on the Farm17911Christians and Jews20112Go Directly to Jail22713The Cultural Divide24714From Swords to Missiles27315Desert Storms29916After September 11325Notes349Bibliography371Index375
