Less than 50 years ago, Saudi Arabia was a desert kingdom whose prime source of income was a head tax imposed on Moslem pilgrims traveling to Mecca. Today the derricks and pipelines of a huge U.S. corporation tap rich pools of oil beneath the desert sands and turn them into streams of gold that pour into the royal coffers of Saudi Arabia at a rate of $200 million yearly. Last week TIME's Middle East Correspondent Keith Wheeler cabled an account of the problems and promises engendered by this desert alchemy.
The desert sands stretch north, south and west as far as the eye can see outside the efficient, modern executive offices of the Arabian American Oil Co. in Dhahran. The headaches that keep Aramco's bosses awake at night are largely conditioned by the sands, for Aramco, in bringing new riches to the desert, has brought new values as well. Last year all 14,000 of Aramco's Saudi Arab workers walked off the job. "Do you know what the strike leaders were asking for?" one of the bosses asked me. "It wasn't just raises. They wanted cost-of-living allowances like the Americans have. They wanted to ride to work like the Americans do. They were after all the things they see as distinctions between them and the Americans. That's the guts of it.
"We can't help it and they can't help it. We come to the desert and we bring along radios and washing machines and cars and Lord knows what, and we give a shocking jolt to a culture that was sustained for centuries by dates and camels and faith in Allah. We didn't come here to manufacture a nation of imitation Americans, but it happens whether you like it or not. The trouble is, the imitation is neither American nor Saudi."
Aramco pays higher wages than anyone else in Saudi Arabia. In Dhahran, the company's headquarters town, an employee draws his living quarters according to seniority and job, not nationality. Aramco's Bedouin workers come off the desert and out of tents and go to live in air-conditioned houses. They have swimming pools hooded against the noonday sun and athletic fields floodlighted for night play. But as its Saudi employees learn to live more like Americans, Aramco itself becomes more Saudi. In its relations with the government and 53-year-old King Saud, Aramco maintains a policy so studiously circumspect that sometimes it seems to its younger workers to be downright spineless. Often it proves bitter as gall to the American workers.
Royal Suggestions. Aramco's American employees in Saudi Arabia took it hard, when more than two years ago old King Ibn Saud imposed prohibition. They have, with some grumbling, accepted a ban on importing books, which apparently was intended to foil the entry of subversive literature. They haven't even fought the decree that bans driving licenses for women outside the company compound— although deep underneath there is a seething feminine ferment about it.