Hart’s three tours of duty in Saudi Arabia, the last as ambassador from 1961 to 1965, gave him a unique appreciation of that desert kingdom’s culture and people. Helping forge the critical U.S.-Saudi security partnership, a relationship that remains to this day a key aspect of U.S. diplomacy, engaged all his accumulated diplomatic skill.

Saudi Arabia and the United States, Hart’s scrupulously researched eyewitness account covering the period from the 1930s through the mid-1960s, includes much previously unpublished information on the origins of the U.S.-Saudi relationship and the many controversies that arose, such as those over the construction and maintenance of Dhahran airfield. Hart provides many inside perspectives on the Saudi kings, including the deposing of Saud, the accession of Faisal, and Faisal’s consolidation of the Saudi nation. He reports in great depth on the Egyptian-Saudi hostilities sparked by the revolutionary war in the Yemen and on the US/UN intervention that thwarted Egyptian president Nasser’s designs on Saudi oil resources. He also analyzes other persistently sensitive issues, such as Middle East political turmoil and the security of the vast Saudi oil reserves.