By Military Aircraft to Dhahran, 37 Years Ago

By Grace Halsell

Stored in my memory box from my first visit to Saudi Arabia—37 years ago—I have three vivid recollections. First, just getting there was a memorable experience. Then, I can't forget a visit to Hofuf nor a visit to a complete and back then still relatively new village called Aramco.

To get to Dhahran, I had boarded a U.S. Air Force cargo plane in Wiesbaden, Germany. As an accredited foreign correspondent I could fly free of charge on cargo planes that generally had no heat on a "space available" basis. Passengers huddled along steel "bucket seats" attached to the walls of the plane, and in some instances they sprawled on the craft's belly. It was an 18-hour flight, with a stop in Athens for fuel. During the long flight, I got acquainted with several of 26 Saudis aboard—and learned they were the first graduates of a U.S. training school for Saudi pilots.

All were wearing gold watches, gifts of King Sa'ud. Pilot Mohammed Dughayther told me that the watch he was wearing, with a picture of the King on its face, "cost $200." He added, "Actually, I was given two watches, one for being first in my class." He had not achieved that status easily. Before entering flight training he had graduated from the American University of Beirut.

"My father was a trader," Dughayther explained. "He drove camel herds from Arabia to Beirut. When my father died, our family became poor. I worked while attending classes."

The young pilots said they earned a salary equivalent to $300 a month. I had just come from Spain where I learned that a Spanish army private earned only 15 cents a month salary. The Saudis all were neatly dressed in "pinks," as the U.S. army called its officers' uniforms—and all with whom I talked spoke impeccable English.

I see them "in memory"—and often have contemplated the changes in their lives—and in the vigorous new country reborn in their ancient land. I have traveled in recent times again in Saudi Arabia—and marveled at the transformations. Perhaps no country has undergone such startling changes so rapidly as has Saudi Arabia. It was one man—Abdul Aziz Ibn Sa'ud (1876-1953)—who created the most powerful monarchy in the Arab world.

When "the father" of the country died in 1953, his son, Crown Prince Sa'ud bin Abdul Aziz (1902-1969) became King. He had held the position for five years by the time I arrived. "Would you like to see him, maybe meet him?" a Saudi photographer asked me. He said that he and three U.S. movie photographers working for the Arabian American Oil Company, Aramco, would go to Hofuf—and I could go along.

"The King will be traveling by train, from Riyadh to Damman-Dhahran," the photographer said. "The train makes a scheduled stop in Hofuf. When it stops, we'll board—and accompany the King on to the coast." Thus the photographers and I set out before dawn to drive south to Hofuf.

Untouched by Western Hands

In the old walled city, I imagined that nothing had changed in 2,000 years. We visited a vast covered market, with merchants operating from small stalls—some hardly bigger than a telephone booth. I had seen other Arab markets, but none impressed me as did Hofuf. It appeared older, its authenticity undiluted by incongruous outside influences. I saw no signs for colas, cigarettes, or any modern product. Then the fifth largest city in Arabia, Hofuf gave no indication it had been touched by Western hands.

As we walked from the market to the train station, my vitality was shriveling in the blazing sun like water disappearing on parched ground. The temperature was 125 degrees. A hot wind left my head throbbing.

About 5 p.m., I heard a train whistle. Excitedly, the photographers and I gathered near the rails. We were among some 50 Saudis who had waited at the station most of the day. The train approached—in slow motion. As cars began passing in front of us, I noted that window curtains were drawn. To our astonishment, the train kept moving—never coming to a halt. We spotted an engineer holding a small placard: it informed those waiting that the train was not stopping—the King was ill.

Back in Dhahran we learned that the King, after disembarking from the train, had gone immediately to the Aramco hospital in Dhahran for treatment. (Years later King Sa'ud went to Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, where he underwent stomach surgery.)

My third memory: an initial glimpse of the sprawling Aramco compound that back in 1958 arose like a mirage on the desert sands. I visited in homes with green yards and flowering oleanders. I toured a huge refinery and other facilities that reminded me of my native Texas. Yet they were much more impressive because they seemed so incongruous with nearby Hofuf and the vast emptiness of the surrounding desert.

At the Ras Tanura facilities, the district manager, a Texan named S. C. Harper, told me of his own arrival by military aircraft some 15 years earlier. "I was flown here on U.S. government orders before the end of the war," he explained. Then, with a sweeping wave of his arm toward the refinery, then handling 240,000 barrels of petroleum a day, he added, "All of this was desert. We had instructions to turn out aviation fuel to help win the war in the Pacific. But, when the war was over, we started producing the diesel fuel that helped send the American troops back home."

And I visited with another Texan, Don Carroll, who had come to Saudi Arabia in 1948. When I met him he was boss of the $6,500,000 power plant and eight substations for Aramco. In those early years of Saudi petroleum production, Texans and other Americans were the movers and shakers—the developers. But, in the case of Aramco, over the intervening years, total ownership, control and management has moved smoothly—if somewhat slowly—to the rightful owners, the Saudis.

The development of Saudi Arabia, largely within my own lifetime, has been a modern miracle which I was able, in some small ways, to witness at first hand.

Grace Halsell, a Washington, D.C.-based writer, was a correspondent for six Texas newspapers when in 1958 she first traveled to Saudi Arabia.