James E. Akins - U.S. Ambassador To Saudi Arabia

U.S. Ambassador To Saudi Arabia

One of his first acts as ambassador was to send a confidential message to oil executives who were forming the Aramco consortium in Saudi Arabia "to use their contacts at the highest levels" of the U.S. government to "hammer home the point that oil restrictions are not going to be lifted unless political struggle is settled in a manner satisfactory to Arabs", advocating at least some measure of support for Arab claims against Israel, something he would often do later in life as an industry consultant, and was often criticized for. "Here he was, the American ambassador to Saudi Arabia, attempting to reinforce the Arabs' blackmail of the United States", wrote Steven Emerson in his book The American House of Saud (1985). Akins' reply was that he was just doing his job of promoting U.S. interests, which may or may not coincide with those of Israel because of growing U.S. dependence on Arab oil. Akins was dismissed as ambassador in August 1975 after a series of clashes on policy matters with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, one involving Akins' assertion (dismissed as "absurd" by Mr. Kissinger) that Kissinger had approved of Iran's raising oil prices to buy American arms, another involving Akins's assertion that a top foreign policy maker (Kissinger?) was pondering a United States takeover of Middle East oil fields. Akins also infuriated the Secretary of State when he protested Kissinger's successful request for Saudi officials to grant entry to New York Times columnist C.L. Sulzberger, who the Saudis had initially refused a visa to because they didn't allow Jews to enter the country. Akins claimed to first find out about his firing from a friend who called to read him a newspaper article reporting it, saying "I presume that I have stepped on a few toes" in an interview with The New York Times. Akins claimed that during his tenure as ambassador he built trust and understanding between Saudi Arabia and Israel, turning King Faisal of Saudi Arabia from rejecting the idea of a Jewish state to accepting the legitimacy of Israel within its pre-1967 borders.