Saudi P.R.
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
So with the congressional committees and hundreds of reporters swarming around the war story in Washington, it fell to a trade newsletter, O’Dwyer’s PR Daily, to come in with the news that Saudi Arabia paid an American public relations firm $14.6 million in the first six months of 2002. O’Dwyer’s called the sum “staggering” and said it exceeds the previous known record for such work, $14.2 million spent by a Kuwaiti front group at Hill and Knowlton during a six-month period in 1990 and 1991 to build support for the Persian Gulf War. Meanwhile, the Saudi Press Agency reports that King Fahd has invited 1,000 Palestinian Arab pilgrims “who are members of martyr’s families” to “perform Hajj this year at his personal expense.” Here’s some advice to the king that won’t cost him $14.6 million: If he wants better relations with America, he should stop rewarding the families of suicide bombers with all-expense paid trips.
