Cairo's press trumpeted that the meeting was to be "the turning point in the history of the Arab world." But King Saud had lingered on in Libya, and his plane touched down at Cairo's airfield a negligent six hours late. The Convair's automatic steps failed to function, and Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser had to wait an awkward several moments more before Saud stepped down into his welcoming embrace.
The once automatic alignment of Saud and Nasser was in no better working order than the automatic steps. All the way back from his warming visit to President Dwight Eisenhower, Saud had been...