Still reading House of Saud. Like Jerusalem we get firehosed with information to the extent picking out a specific theme presents a challenge. One impression I get is that (up to King Khaled) the place is a family concern. This has its blessings and its curses.
On the blessing side, the (enormous) family found a clique of princes who could band together, each with his own complementary abilities. This became important under Ibn Saud's successor, confusingly named King Saud, who was terrible at his job (and a sot, and eventually a traitor). The important three are Faisal the ruler, Fahd the diplomat, and Abdullah the - I am unsure exactly, but a moderating force on Fahd, anyway. I grew up when Fahd was king and Abdullah increasingly regent.
On the minus side, sometimes a prince would go abroad and make a scene, like Fahd when he gambled away a chunk of the treasury on the Riviera. And then there was the prince who came right here to the Boulder area, I think, and got busted selling lysergic to the students. Like they needed more excuse to be nutters.
That latter prince ended up an unemployable wanker like so many others; abandoned Islam, and shot king Faisal in the throat. Because it was the King's fault he'd almost caused an international incident by being a drug pusher in a (then) highly conservative state. (Whatever.) There were lots of conspiracy-theories that the CIA or the Joooos did it, or maybe the commies; but Holden and Johns agree that the Saudis had created their own Lee Harvey Oswald, a loser with unfortunately a rural Coloradan's sense of aim.
If this was a political assassination, this one was retarded. Fahd and Abdullah had already agreed upon the royal succession, the rather-undistinguished Khaled. All this because Faisal was already in his seventies and, observably, on his way out, one way or another. His predecessor had resigned, involuntarily; Faisal very-possibly was headed the way of his eventual successor Fahd, retaining a titular crown only.
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