Office of the Historian

143. Memorandum of Conversation1

Washington, September 8, 1970, 12:30 p.m.

PARTICIPANTS

  • The President
  • Nicholas G. Thacher, U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia
  • Harold H. Saunders, NSC Staff

After an exchange of pleasantries about Ambassador Thacher’s previous assignments during a picture-taking session, the President opened the conversation by saying that he wanted the Ambassador to convey a personal message to King Faisal. The President said he had seen the King on a number of occasions over the years. The most recent was at the Waldorf in New York when the President was out of the office and the King was in New York in connection with a state visit. New York, under pressure from some elements of the Jewish community, had withdrawn an invitation for official entertainment. The President said he had gone to see Faisal because of his personal respect. He, of course, also remembered the King’s brother during a state visit during the 1950’s.

The President said that the Ambassador should tell the King—if he felt it useful—that the United States is not making its foreign policy in the Middle East or anywhere else on the basis of domestic politics. The King is sophisticated and is aware of the political realities in the United States. The President knows that the question is often put: How many votes do the Arabs have in the United States? The President said that the Ambassador could tell the King that whatever these realities might be, the responsible Arabs have a friend in the Washington.

The President, in summary, asked the Ambassador to make clear that the President has a great deal of personal respect for King Faisal. To be sure, we Americans do not go along with the authoritarian way of running a society, but that suits Saudi Arabia at this stage, and we understand that.

Ambassador Thacher confirmed that this message was the most useful kind of word that he could take to the King.

The conversation then turned to more general matters—that both the President and the Ambassador had been in the Navy in the Pacific during World War II and that Ambassador Thacher had had the pleasure of being host to the President during his 1967 visit to Tehran.

H.S.
  1. Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Material, NSC Files, Box 629, Country Files, Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Vol. II. Confidential. The meeting took place in the Oval Office.↩