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The disintegration of this granite-faced man, whose steely strength and craftiness unified a sprawled sand ocean of 900,000 square miles and its 6,000,000 warriorlike people, has brought uncertainty to the country. The old man now seldom rises from the wheelchair which Franklin D. Roosevelt gave him after Ibn Saud admired Roosevelt's. He sometimes embarrasses visitors by falling asleep in mid-conversation.
Ibn Saud's heir apparent, 50-year-old Saud, has little of his father's old forcefulness and guile. He needs both badly, for he has enemies as far as one can see across the Arabian sand and jebel. Finance Minister Abdullah Al-Soliman, trusted confidant of the King and the most powerful man in the country outside the royal family, would rather see 46-year-old Foreign Minister Feisal, Ibn Saud's second son, succeed to the throne. So would the British.
Despite the alarms, Aramco keeps hands off. Iran, it feels, demonstrated conclusively the futility and danger in the old British policy of meddling, bribing and threatening. Aramco continues to pledge its entire fortune to the theory that if the West comes to the Middle East as a friend, it will be welcome and both will profit.