246 • 14 MODERNIZING RULERS IN THE INDEPENDENT STATESFive years of exploration and drilling ensued before the Americans
struck oil in 1938 at Dhahran and began sending barrels to the British re¬
finery on the nearby island of Bahrain, already an oil-exporting country.
Soon they were building their own refinery, storage tanks, and a loading
dock on the Persian Gulf. Petroleum technicians, construction foremen,
and equipment poured into Dhahran, which became a "Little America"
replete with lawns, swimming pools, air-conditioned buildings, and a
commissary where the Americans could buy the canned goods, chewing
gum, and cigarettes they had known back home. By this time, Texas Oil
Company had joined California Standard in setting up a subsidiary offi¬
cially called the Arabian American Oil Company but generally known by
the abbreviation Aramco. Tanker shortages during World War II delayed
its operations, but eventually Aramco began selling to US forces in the Pa¬
cific. After the war, new oil exploration and discoveries raised Saudi out¬
put to 1.3 million barrels per day in 1960, 3.8 million in 1970, and more
than 10 million in 1981, when the kingdom's annual oil revenue reached
$113 billion. Over a quarter of the world's proven petroleum reserves are
thought to lie in Saudi territory.
The exploitation of Middle East oil was the most revolutionary change
of that time. Karl Twitchell was surely no Karl Marx, but the result of his
labors—amplified by Aramco's later geologists and explorers—drastically
changed the economic, social, cultural, and moral life of the Saudi Arabs.
No Middle Eastern people or country has been untouched by the shower
of Saudi wealth. Its effects on the world economy are discussed in a later
chapter, but let us say for now that oil wealth made the Saudi government
the most influential in the Arab world.
What is less well known is that Saudi Arabia had hardly any government
while Ibn Sa'ud ruled. For most of this period Saudi Arabia was "gov¬
erned" insofar as Ibn Sa'ud had the personal charm and, if needed, the
force to subdue (and collect tribute from) the bedouin tribes within his
realm. Any money he got from the tribal shaykhs, the pilgrims, or Aramco
went into his private treasury. It was used to maintain his palace, support
his harem, increase his herds of Arabian horses and camels, and grant
sumptuous gifts to his foreign visitors or to his subjects, each of whom
had the right to go directly to Ibn Sa'ud to vent his grievances and obtain
justice. There was no formal cabinet; Ibn Sa'ud talked with his relatives
and a few foreign advisers, but he made his own decisions. There was no
state bank; the gold sovereigns were stored in wooden chests. The laws
were those of the Quran and the sunna, administered by Hanbali ulama.
Thieves had their hands chopped off. Murderers were beheaded. Disobe¬
dient tribes were fined or banished from their grazing lands. The Wah-