The Bin Ladens

3. “sizeable…shipments”: DOS 59/7207 Jeddah to Washington, December 29, 1949. “rampant graft…so long as the King lived”: DOS 59/7211 Jeddah to Washington, September 6, 1946, quoting the British minister in Jeddah.

4. Pilgrim transport business: Long, The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, p. 100. Dammam hotel with theater and bar: DOS 59/5468 Jeddah to Washington, December 18, 1950. “one of the wealthiest…fat government contracts”: DOS 59/7214 Jeddah to Washington, August 14, 1946. Stopped the water project: DOS 59/7209 Jeddah to Washington, August 16, 1946. “hitting the bottle…increasing rate”: DOS 59/7210 Jeddah to Washington, July 12, 1949.

5. King demanding wedding gifts, treasury empty: FO 371/82664 Jeddah to London, January 12, 1950. “not particularly…for his arrival”: FO 370/82639 Jeddah to London, January 3, 1950.

6. DOS 59/5469 Jeddah to Washington, July 7, 1951. The budget announced that summer provided for 21 million riyals to the Ministry of Health, and about 109 million riyals on “palaces, princes, Riyadh.”

7. Digging Faisal’s garden: DOS 59/5471 “Memorandum of Conversation,” October 25, 1951. “the headaches…the advantages”: DOS 59/57/D/298/7 “Memorandum of Conversation,” June 14, 1950.

8. King to Taif: DOS 59/5469 Jeddah to Washington, July 26, 1951.

9. “always together”: Interview with Ahmed Fathalla, April 23, 2006 (RS). Bin Laden’s work on Mecca water project: DOS 59/5467 Jeddah to Washington, April 17, 1951, and FO 371/82657 Jeddah to London, “Jeddah Monthly Economic Reports,” July and August 1950.

10. Royal Order: Annual Record, KAA Foundation, May 24, 1950. “for grading around the new residence”: DOS 59/5472 Cover letter and memorandum from Bechtel International Corp. to DOS, January 17, 1951. Bechtel reported that it had been promised that Bin Laden would soon give the machinery back.

11. “Various members…their installation”: DOS 59/5467 Jeddah to Washington, February 20, 1951.

12. Translated in DOS 59/6119 Jeddah to Washington, July 7, 1952.

13. Translated in DOS 59/5468, article dated January 3, 1951.

14. Salha’s diversion: DOS 59/5471 “Memorandum of Conversation,” April 4, 1952. The Bechtel executive, Mr. English, is quoted as saying, “there was not the slightest doubt in his mind” that Salha had stolen the $400,000, the equivalent of about $3 million in 2008 dollars.

15. “to be interested…constructional works”: FO 371/104859 Jeddah to London, Jeddah Economic Report, November 1952 to January 1953. Bahareth’s $100,000: DOS 59/5471 Jeddah to Washington, October 4, 1953.

16. Royal Order 15/12/5607 dated June 22, 1951. KAA Foundation.

17. Philby writes to the king: DOS 59/5472 Jeddah to Washington, January 12, 1950. “a marked reluctance… from the shock”: FO 371/82657 “Jeddah Monthly Economic Reports,” March and April 1950. Export insurance: DOS 59/5472 Jeddah to Washington, May 27, 1950.

18. Tea party: DOS 59/5467 Jeddah to Washington, December 21, 1950, and January 20, 1951.

19. Soil composition: DOS 59/5472 Survey by W. J. Chalkley of Bechtel, February 6, 1951. “end of a long chain of misfortunes”: DOS 59/5468 Jeddah to Washington, November 24, 1952.

20. Eight hundred automobiles: DOS 59/5467 Jeddah to Washington, May 6, 1952. “Happily presiding… however misguided”: DOS 59/5472 Jeddah to Washington, January 7, 1953.

21. Asphalt order: DOS 59/5472 Jeddah to Washington, January 7, 1953. “about half a million…ill humor”: FO 371/104859 Jeddah Economic Report, February 1953 to April 1953. “As this is…foreign firm”: FO 371/104859 Jeddah to London, January 7, 1953.

22. “fright…do the job”: FO 371/104859, Jeddah to London, January 7, 1953. “has been given…to come from”: Ibid., Jeddah Economic Report, August 1953 to October 1953.

23. Shareholder records submitted by the family in a consolidated series of civil cases arising from the events of September 11, 2001, In Re Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001, 03 MDL 1570, provide the year of birth, using the Islamic calendar, of each of Mohamed’s surviving children, except for Osama and also Mohamed’s son Ali, neither of whom was a shareholder in the period described by the records. The numbers of sons and daughters born before late 1953 is taken from these filings; the number of wives that produced these children has been calculated from confidential interviews with family members and business associates of the Bin Ladens, who described which brothers, and in some cases, which sisters, were born to the same mother. That the mother of Yeslam, Khalil, Ibrahim, and Fawzia is of Iranian origin is also confirmed by Bin Laden, Inside the Kingdom, p. 17. Yeslam’s birth date is from Swiss divorce pleadings translated and filed in Carmen Binladin v. Yeslam and Ibrahim Binladin, Los Angeles County Superior Court, BC212648.

24. Aphrodisiacs and forcing his sons to stand: The House of Saud, p. 159. Holden and Johns provide a thorough account of Ousman’s murder, pp. 170–71.

25. The scene and the king’s burial: FO 371/104868 Jeddah to London, November 24, 1953.

26. “private and secret…begin with himself” and the loan request: DOS 59/5469 Jeddah to Washington, November 10, 1953. The scene was recorded by the American charge d’affaires.

4. THE GLORY OF HIS REIGN

1. $20 million per month: Oil revenue during 1954 was $234.8 million, Holden and Johns, The House of Saud, p. 180. “administrative chaos…shortage of cash”: FO 371/104867 Jeddah to London, October 11, 1953.

2. Mohamed and Abdullah, Sons of Awadh Bin Laden: Ger FM 366, WI 416-80.04-427/59 Jeddah to Bonn, September 8, 1959. “amorphous organization…ambitious plans”: FO 371/104867, op. cit.

3. “royal expenditures…their pockets”: DOS 59/4944 Jeddah to Washington, “Economic and Financial Review: Saudi Arabia 1954,” April 7, 1955.

4. The electric company and its problems: DOS 59/5472 Jeddah to Washington, June 12, 1954. Burns and Roe, “instrumental in winning”: DOS 59/4945 Jeddah to Washington, January 8, 1955.

5. Royal Order: Decree no. 21/1/138/2265, Umm al-Qura Annual Record, KAA Foundation. West German estimate of $200 million: Ger FO 146/97-649/55 Jeddah to Bonn, December 23, 1955. Bin Laden’s projects circa 1955: FO 371/114885 Jeddah to London, April 6, 1955. Gypsum deposit: DOS 59/4945 Jeddah to Washington, July 5, 1955. Bin Laden’s New York agent: Burns and Roe report, attachment, ibid.

6. Flight to Mukalla: DOS translation of article in Al-Bilad Al-Saudiyah no. 2110, March 25, 1956, 59/5371. Bought out Abdullah: DOS RG 59 “The Bin Ladin Construction Empire,” Jeddah to Washington, September 25, 1967. “Mohamed was more ambitious…wanted more”: Interview with Khalid Ameri, March 17, 2007.

7. Abdullah’s return home: Interviews with Rabat town council members and with Khalid Ameri, March 17, 2007. Bin Mahfouz school: Interview with its principal, March 17, 2007. Mohamed’s Rakiyah water project: Interviews with Bin Laden family members in their ancestral village of Gharn Bashireih, March 18, 2007.

8. Packard convertibles: Interview with Nadim Fakhreddine, April 26, 2006 (RS). “are known as…good reputation”: Ger FM 145/560 Jeddah to Bonn, September 19, 1957. “the richest company…state orders”: 277/200/WI-416-84-04.461/58 Jeddah to Bonn, July 2, 1958.

9. “They are…My head could go”: Interview with Fakhreddine, op. cit. “He told us…our upbringing”: Dateline NBC, broadcast July 10, 2004. Buraimi dispute: DOS 59/5371 Beirut to Washington, March 1, 1956. The Americans had hoped that Bin Laden would intervene with King Saud to prevent a construction contract from being awarded to a state-owned Polish communist firm, but Fouad Zahed, Bin Laden’s chief engineer, said that Bin Laden would not get involved because of “dissatisfaction United States policy re Buraimi dispute and handling of tank shipment,” as the cable reporting on the issue put it. In fact, the United States sided decisively with Saudi Arabia against Britain in this border dispute, according to Bronson, Thicker Than Oil, p. 62; nor is it clear from the documents reviewed what “tank shipment” Bin Laden was complaining about.

10. FO 371/114872 Jeddah to London, January 6, 1955. De Gaury, Arabia Phoenix, pp. 86–92. House of Saud, op. cit., pp. 174–83. Saud’s children: DOS 59/2643 Jeddah to Washington, December 16, 1964.