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| Portraits of Soraya and Adnan Khashoggi |
The time is early February 1974. I am at work in Monday Morning, the nonpolitical English-language
weekly magazine I founded and started publishing in Beirut 18 months earlier. The
tabloid-size periodical is thriving and its offices in the Wadi’ Beshara
Building on Rue Maamari, just off Hamra, is a magnet for reporters, writers and
photojournalists.
My receptionist Huda Asmar, who comes from Damour, walks
in one day and says a foreign female photographer wants to show you her
portfolio.
Enter a stunning doe-eyed woman with plenty of je ne
sais quoi whom the late Norman Parkinson at
one time described as “the most naturally beautiful woman I have ever
photographed.” She introduces herself by
her first name, Soraya, and shows me an impressive sample of her photographs
and color slides for sale.
I ask if I could keep some on consignment and whether
she would accept occasional freelance assignments. She answers yes to both
questions, gives me a telephone number to reach her and takes leave.
Within the week, I ask Huda to ring Soraya and request
photos to illustrate a feature on around 30 food-and-drink establishments in
Beirut that a reporter has already evaluated.
Next morning, a man delivers an envelope from Soraya containing
not contact prints for the feature, but some 60 black and white photographs. They
were all taken and developed overnight.
I am deeply impressed.
The lady photographer with the dazzling looks passes
by my office hours later to say she will shortly be flying to Cairo, where she
can do some work for the magazine.
ALI AMIN
Within days, she sends me a message on the
teleprinter of Egypt’s official Middle East News Agency (MENA). She asks if Monday Morning would be interested in an exclusive interview with Ali Amin.
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| Soraya interviewing Ali Amin at al-Ahram in Cairo |
The press baron had just been named editor-in-chief
of the authoritative daily al-Ahram,
replacing the deposed monarch of the Arab press, Mohamed Hassanein Heikal.
Ali Amin was stepping into Heikal's shoes after nine years of self-exile following
the release from jail of his twin brother Mustafa on President Anwar Sadat’s orders.
I quickly wire Soraya my go-ahead for the interview.
Inside 48 hours, I receive six photographs and a
transcribed text of the taped interview – signed “Soraya Khashoggi” – again, courtesy of MENA in Beirut.
When I show the text and pictures to my co-editor
Imad Shehadeh, he looks at me and asks, “Which Soraya Khashoggi? Do you know
her?”
-- “I know Soraya. I don’t know her surname.”
-- “Strange, because the wife of Adnan Khashoggi is called
Soraya. Can it be her?”
-- “No idea, but who’s Adnan Khashoggi anyway?”
Imad briefs me on the man in a few sentences and we
agree on a byline: “Text and Photographs by Monday
Morning’s Special Correspondent Soraya Khashoggi.”
With Soraya away in Cairo and the “Khashoggi” riddle
still unsolved, we decide to make the four-page interview with Ali Amin the
cover story of the 25 February 1974 edition.
Key
questions and answers from the interview:
Soraya: What’s
your opinion of the new freedom allowed in the Egyptian press? Did you have any
part in this new policy?
Ali Amin: No. I did not have any part in it. But to
say Anwar Sadat gave us back the freedom of the press is the wrong way of
putting it. I do not accept the idea that the ruler gives freedom to us. We took
back our freedom, of course with the approval of the President – and we feel
that this is good for us, the people, and also better for the President
himself. Before this, al-Ahram was a
newspaper in which the ruler said what he wanted to his people; now it is the
other way round – it is a newspaper through which the people will say what they
want to their ruler. I feel strongly that had we had the freedom of press, we
would never have had the defeat of June 5 (1967)…
S.: What,
in your view, has the reaction of the people been since you took over as editor
in chief?
A.A.: Well, the circulation of the newspaper is the
real mirror, and the circulation has increased.
S.: How
much?
A.A.: I think it has increased about 70,000 in our
weekly issue and by 20,000 to 25,000 in our daily issue…
S.: How do
you feel being back in Egypt after so many years (in self-exile)? Did you ever
feel that would never happen?
A.A.: No. I always believed this would happen. I
always knew the day would follow the night -- and it was a long, long night. I
always believed the sun would rise again, and it did.
S.: Did you
ever fear that you would never again see your twin brother Mustafa, who spent
so many years in prison, alive?
A.A.: No. I always knew I would see him. I was never
afraid of that.
S.: What is
your opinion of the forthcoming Islamic Summit? (The summit
started in Pakistan two days after the interview was conducted.)
A.A.: The Islamic conference will show the unity of
the Islamic countries, but I want to tell you something: We Egyptians are many
Muslims and many Christians. In the (1973) October War the only General who
died was a Christian, Gen. Shafik Mitri Serdak. And there were two Marshals who
fought in the battle and crossed the Suez Canal; one of them is a Christian.
…I want to tell you that when I was a boy, I
witnessed the 1919 Revolution, and one of the greatest successes of this
Revolution against the British was that its leader Saad Zaghloul – my
great-uncle -- united the Moslems and the Christians, and for the first time in
our history, we fought together…
S.: What
did you do in all the (nine) years you spent outside Egypt?
A.A.: I wrote. I wrote a column in (Beirut’s daily) al-Anwar. I wrote many articles for
other papers, I followed all the Egyptian and Arab press and I worked in the
(Lebanese) As-Sayyad publishing
house.
S.: You
chose England to spend most of your exile in, why?
A.A.: Because I spent all my youth in England and
studied five years in Sheffield University.
GAAFAR
NIMEIRY
The first question I ask Soraya on her return to
Beirut from Cairo is: Now that you have identified yourself as Soraya Khashoggi,
are you related to Adnan Khashoggi? Is he your husband by any chance?”
“Yes he is,” she answers with a disarming smile, “and
we are the proud parents of five children: Nabila, Mohamed, Khaled, Hussein and
Omar. Do you want to meet Adnan by any chance -- or interview him?”
-- “I do, of course.”
-- “Adnan and I will travel this week and I could
interview Sudanese President Gaafar Nimeiry at one point during our trip. Are you interested?”
“Indeed I am!”
The interview with Nimeiry -- titled “Sudan will
be garden of the world” -- appears as a cover story under Soraya’s full
name in April 1974. Among the subtitles:
-- “The national-unity problems of Sudan and Lebanon
are similar: they are artificial”
-- “We will be one of the world’s four major food
suppliers before the year 2000”
-- “We have some promise of future oil and gas
discoveries”
ADNAN
KHASHOGGI
In mid-May 1974, Soraya sets up my appointment to
interview her husband, who is said to be the richest man in the world. He
receives me warmly and courteously at his luxurious offices in the Gefinor
building in Ras Beirut on a day sandwiched between two of his business trips.
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| I interviewed Adnan at his HQ in Beirut's Gefinor |
I ask him how he managed to build up one small Saudi
company into a business colossus that is wrapping its arms around the globe.
“My success? I was lucky enough to be in the right
place at the right time,” he tells me before expounding on his Triad Holding
Company.
He describes it as a multinational mammoth chiefly
engaged in (1) commercial and investment banking and venture capital (2) industrial
and commercial development, and (3) worldwide trade – with operating companies in
Indonesia, Brazil, the United States, Europe and the Middle East.
Why “Triad”?
The name springs from the involvement in Adnan’s giant
business enterprise of his two brothers, Adel and Issam.
“Q.: There
have been rumors in the media about your involvement in arms deals. Would you
care to comment on them?
“A.: We don’t deal in arms. I certainly don’t have a
shop that sells guns and bombs. Our marketing company does represent large
American and European industries that manufacture both civilian and military
equipment. One example is Lockheed, which builds the Tri-Star, a commercial
plane, and the F104, which is a fighter. We market both products, and our customers
for this kind of equipment are usually governments or airlines.”
The interview with the courteous Adnan, which Soraya
did not attend, makes the cover story of the May 20, 1974 edition of my
magazine.
With the buildup towards Lebanon’s civil war
quickening, Soraya rings me shortly after to say she was moving with the
children out of Beirut for safety reasons but will stay in touch.
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| Shirley Bassey (Photo from Wikipedia) |
Indeed she did stay in touch by telephone and even
sent me an interview for Monday Morning
with Shirley Bassey. “The greatest singer in the world today” talks in it about
Um Kulthoum,
Lebanese audiences, her career, her personality, her fans and her future. The
interview appeared February 10, 1975.
It was the last time I heard from either Soraya or
Adnan save for one telephone conversation later in the month. They are at
Beirut airport, probably waiting for to refueling of their private plane. Soraya
asks me about the political tension gripping the country. When I start moaning
about the difficulty of publishing an apolitical magazine in a politicized
atmosphere, she tells me, “Wait, Adnan wants to have a word.”
Adnan comes on the line and says, “Hi, I overheard
Soraya mention ‘problem’ -- what problem are you facing?”
I say turning the magazine political is vital for its
survival in this politically charged atmosphere. The exclusiveness that governs
issuing political licenses to Lebanese newspapers and magazines (allowing them
to cover politics) means I have to buy an existing political publishing license.
Adnan: “Why don’t you do that?”
-- “I can do that. But to put the newly acquired political
publishing license to use, I first need to join the Lebanese Publishers’ Union,
which is a protracted procedure. Alternatively,
I need to set up a shareholding company with a minimum capital of half-a-million
Lebanese liras.”
Adnan: “Okay, go the shorter route. Don’t worry about
raising the capital. I’ll fund it in full...”
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| Soraya's June 1999 write-up for The Mail on Sunday |
A
few weeks after our conversation, I choose to take the longer route. I buy an existing
political publishing license -- weekly ash-Shiraa
-- from Monsignor
Antoine Cortbawi, join the Lebanese
Publishers’ Union as sole owner of a political publishing license and turn Monday Morning socio-political starting
May 1975. (See my post “The cost of
gagging Beirut -- Part IV”)
I must say here, at least for the record, that Soraya
never accepted a penny for any work she did for me, nor did I ever take up
Adnan’s unqualified and openhanded funding offer.
I was saddened by their divorce but have had no
contact with either over the past 35 years.
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| Jonathan and Petrina |
And I was bemused on June 20,1999 when I read “Byline:
SORAYA KHASHOGGI” on an article in
The Mail on Sunday (London). In it,
Soraya recounts her extraordinary love affair with Jonathan Aitken, the
former Cabinet Minister and the father or her daughter Petrina.
Soraya writes in her opening paragraphs:
“I FIRST met Jonathan
Aitken when Harpers magazine sent me
to photograph him for an article.
“He
was working in his rooms in Holland Park and he laughed when the photographer
sent to take his picture turned up in a blue Rolls-Royce convertible.
“I
was living in both London and Saudi Arabia at the time and a few weeks later in
Beirut, Fawaz Najia, my editor on Monday
Morning - an English-language Lebanese magazine that I worked for first as
a photographer then as a writer/photographer - asked me to interview an English
Tory MP on his way to the Gulf who was in town for the night. It turned out to
be Jonathan…”