A Fighter Pilot Turned Negotiator

Saudi diplomats in Washington and other capitals have usually been self-effacing and reserved, preferring to make their case in quiet, behind-the-scenes contacts. Not Prince Bandar ibn Sultan, 34, who played an instrumental role in arranging the cease-fire in Lebanon and who has just been appointed as Saudi Arabia's new Ambassador to the U.S. He likes to be in the thick of the action.

Prince Bandar's royal blood and his savvy about American ways have given him access in Washington unmatched by any other envoy, including the Soviet Union's 21-year veteran Anatoli Dobrynin. The son of Defense Minister Sultan ibn Abdul Aziz and the nephew of King Fahd, Bandar is on a first-name basis with many Washington notables, and has entertained such officials as Secretary of State George Shultz and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger at his McLean, Va., estate overlooking the Potomac. His $1.6 million Georgian brick house, complete with tennis court and swimming pool, happens to be next door to Senator Edward Kennedy's. Says Bandar: "We are good neighbors."

Bandar began representing Saudi interests in Washington almost by accident. He was undergoing officers' training at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., in 1978 when the Senate faced a decision on whether to authorize the sale of 60 F-15 fighter aircraft to Saudi Arabia. Fahd asked Bandar to lobby in favor of the deal. Using grace and wit, he helped persuade the Senators to approve the $2.5 billion sale. Three years later, when President Reagan proposed the sale of five AWACS radar aircraft to Saudi Arabia, Bandar was a natural choice to make the Saudi case, which he did successfully.

A handsome six-footer, Bandar could be a Saudi prince straight from central casting. He is equally comfortable in traditional Bedouin robes and in tailored English suits. Born to power and wealth, Bandar tried to establish his own identity by pursuing a career in which his father's position would not be a factor in his success. "When I am flying at 50 feet upside down in a supersonic jet," he says, "it's me and not my father. The jet doesn't give a damn who you are."

Bandar learned his fluent and colloquial American English during the past ten years, when he attended U.S. military schools. After graduating in 1968 from Britain's Royal Air Force College at Cranwell, he took advanced fighter training at Myrtle Beach Air Force Base, S.C., and earned a parachutist's badge at Fort Benning, Ga. Bandar became an instructor pilot at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas, and finally went on to Maxwell. Along the way he earned a master's degree in international relations at Johns Hopkins University.

Bandar's flying career came to an end last year when he underwent surgery for the removal of a disc in his back. By then he was deeply engaged in diplomacy. He acted as an emissary from President Reagan to P.L.O. Chairman Yasser Arafat last year, when the Administration hoped to win Arafat's support for the Reagan peace initiative. "Flying beats the hell out of diplomacy," says Bandar. "Things are clear, and you get instant feedback from your airplane. In diplomacy you don't know where to start." For all his modesty, U.S. officials give Bandar considerable credit for the Lebanon ceasefire. He not only provided access to the Syrians for U.S. Special Envoy Robert McFarlane, but also helped to shape the agreement that emerged. Says Saeb Salam, a former Lebanese Prime Minister, who was closely involved in the cease-fire negotiations: "Lebanon was very difficult terrain for him to cover, but he handled it very wisely."

Although Bandar misses the thrill of flying jets, he acknowledges that helping to arrange the cease-fire was the high point of his life. The agreement, which was signed in Beirut late in the evening, was to go into effect at 6 the next morning. Bandar stayed up through the night to see whether it would. At about 7:30 a.m. he realized that the shooting had stopped. "The feeling that hit me then was something that I never experienced before," he recalls. "To know that people had stopped dying was more exhilarating than anything I have felt in my life." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.