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Nightly Choice. Saud has dazzled Iran's Queen with a gift of $900,000 worth of jewels, bestowed $400 on an Indian peasant for a cup of tea. But his personal life is curiously austere. He wears no crown or special mark of his kingship; the gold cords that bind his headcloth are worn by several other royal princes. He rises every morning at 4 to read the Koran, prays five times a day in the mosque or on a prayer rug laid out in the garden. Mornings he goes to the Majlis hall, where back-country sheiks come to demand judgment of their quarrels or just sit silently. Afternoons, he likes to watch his sons playing soccer or basketball. After dinner the King retires to his harem for half an hour's talk with his women and presumably to make his choice for the night. No Saudi sees anything wrong in a King maintaining 80 or 90 women; in Saudi eyes, sexual prowess is an admired characteristic of leadership. The women line up as he appears. Each kisses his hand and brings it to her forehead in token of obedience as he passes along the line. Reportedly, they are young and old, ugly and lovely, range from black to white. Since the Koran stipulates no man shall have more than four wives at a time, he presumably keeps no more than three as his official wives, and changes the fourth as the occasion arises.
After evening prayers, Saud spends an hour romping with his youngest children, doffing his glasses to play volley ball, or gathering them around him to tell stories. Officials estimate he has "about 25 sons" (nobody bothers to count daughters), "but how can anyone say how many sons he has? He might be having a couple more while we are talking about it." Each son has his own horse and gets a Cadillac and driver when he is about twelve.
American Aid. Saud is helplessly dependent on Americans to maintain the mechanical luxuries his money has bought. Americans run the power plants, the water supply, the airport, the 350-mile Riyadh-Dammam railroad and the Saudi Airline, now the Middle East's biggest. Saud does not let this disturb his kingly authority, makes no clear distinction between Aramco employees and his own servants. One U.S. technician was roused in the middle of the night and ordered to move the shower nozzle in the King's bathroom: the water hit the King on the chest, and he wanted it moved to strike him on the head. Another was summoned to the palace one midnight to install an air-conditioning unit in the room of a woman Saud had decided suddenly to favor with a visit.