The bullet that killed Lebanon's first and greatest Premier, brilliant, little Riad el Solh (TIME, July 30, 1951), distressed the generous heart of old Ibn Saud, autocrat of Saudi Arabia. The old lion of the desert could always count on an ally when El Solh was representing Lebanon. Ibn Saud wept and vowed to look after his old friend's widow and four daughters. Tragically in the patriarchal Arab world, El Solh died without leaving a son.
So in the summer of 1953, when 29-year-old Sultan Al-Saud arrived in Lebanon, he bore his father's sympathy to the bereaved family and...
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