A Fighter Pilot Turned Negotiator

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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.