ABSTRACT

Since his accession to the throne in 1964, King Faisal had distinguished himself from those Arab leaders who employ fiery rhetoric and empty threats. From the beginning, the choice of Anwar Sadat to succeed Nasser was accepted as a suitable temporary compromise by all the factions vying for power in Egypt. It was felt that an intermediate transitional period was needed before the country could stabilize after the loss of Nasser. For quite some time following Nasser's death, Faisal felt the pressures of assuming Arab leadership. It became obvious that unless he kept moving forward, and at a quicker pace, he had no chance of maintaining a dominant political role in Arab leadership circles. The Saudi monarch entertained no hopes that the United States would abandon Israel or even stop supplying it with arms, but he obviously wanted a concession with which to impress the rest of the Arab world.