The Americans saw him as the most important figure in the Middle East, not only due to his kingdom's oil wealth and its importance to postwar plans, but also because of Ibn Saud's political and religious standing with the Arabs throughout the region....
King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia (center) meeting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt aboard the USS Quincy in Great Bitter Lake, Egypt on February 14, 1945. “Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes, saw Saudi oil and the national security/welfare of the U.S. as umbilically lin...