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Khashoggi always seems to be surrounded by a claque of admirers, an entourage of curious and often comical characters. He is gratified by his friendships with the famous and the powerful, and in his office in New York City there are prominently displayed pictures of himself with Ronald Reagan, Henry Kissinger and Pope Paul VI. At Christmas in Marbella, a gaggle of lesser European royalty partook of "A.K.'s" hospitality. Among them was Count Jaime de Mora y Aragon, the brother of the Queen of Belgium, a rakish fellow with a monocle and a waxed mustache who comes across as a blue-blooded Salvador Dali.
But one of the persons who seem closest to Khashoggi is Shri Chandra Swamiji Maharaj -- Swamiji, for short. The bearded Hindu guru claims he can see into the future and the minds of mortals. The swami's brochure, which he gives out to the uninitiated, says "his Holiness has appeared on the scene as our real savior." On Christmas Eve at Marbella, the white-robed swami glided down the marble steps in the middle of dinner, with his 14 disciples arrayed behind him. In an interview with an Indian magazine, the swami was asked what brought the two men together. "We have many common friends in politics and Hollywood," the holy man replied.
Khashoggi lives in two cultures. His identity is split between East and West, between the simple white thobe he wears with fellow Arabs and the handmade cashmere jackets he wears with Westerners, between the austere ethos of Mecca and the hedonism of Marbella. "When I am among you," he says, as if addressing all of the West, "I do as you do so well that practically I am one of you. But when I am in Saudi Arabia, I am a real Saudi Arabian. I obey and preserve the customs and traditions that give Saudi Arabia its identity and moral strength."
In his attempt to bridge East and West, Khashoggi does make distinctions. His image in the West as the ultimate voluptuary both pleases and annoys him. "People in the West believe they have a higher morality than we do. But in fact we have a higher inner morality. All of us do naughty things from time to time. But when it comes to the really naughty things, we think twice."
America, however, is still the home of his greatest ambitions. "My dream is to take over an important American company and use it as a base of my operations," he says as he sits in his Monte Carlo apartment. Khashoggi wants to leave his mark on the world the way he stamps AK on the cufflinks he gives employees for Christmas. But like such ancient figures as Midas and Croesus, he may end up remembered as something more ephemeral, a man known for the way he accumulated and spent his phenomenal fortune.