My Dad in Saudi Arabia    Consul General, Retired, Dr. Larry Winter Roeder, Ph.D.(hon)

Saudi Watch

Pictures of pocket watch presented to Vice Consul Larry Winter Roeder 1945/1947 in  Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.  This was my father's first diplomatic post, from which he went to Beirut, which is where he met my mother and I was born in 1948.  They were married in December, 1947.   The story goes that one day all of the staff at Dhahran were paraded in front of the Consulate to greet a visiting Saudi dignitary. Cars arrived and a tall man walked down the line, leaving Bedouin clothes in front of each Consul, who were asked to put them on correctly.  Another man then appeared who talked to each Consul in Arabic.

The second man apparently liked Dad's Arabic and the way he dressed, as well as that of Parker T. Hart, then Consul General, and Clarence J. McIntosh (Mac) because he gave each a gold watch, the clothes, a sword and dagger.  Ours are still in the family collection.  Parker opened Dhahran in 1944, our first consulate in Saudi Arabia and the site of the newly discovered oil fields that were to change the history of the Arabian peninsula—and the world.(2)

I was told by my Dad many years ago that the visiting dignitary was none other than King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, a story confirmed by Parker Hart before he passed away in 1997 and then in June 2008 by Mac.  I recently started to research the watch, which was made in Switzerland around 1900.  I use it a few times a year when I give speeches.

All black and white photographs are from collection of Larry Winter Roeder.  All color photos are from collection of Larry Winter Roeder, Jr., MS

Swords and Daggers

My Dad in Bedouin Clothes

Dad in Saudi Clothing Before and After Meeting King
Unfortunately, all that remains of the clothes from that day.	Dad learned to dress like a Bedouin while serving in the American Field Service in World war II in North Africa, Palestine and Syria.	One of the interesting things I learned when going through the personal papers of Clarence McIntosh at Georgetown University was that everyone tried on the local clothing.  I highly recommend anyone interested in this period of history and geography read those papers. My father officially arrived on post in Dhahran as a Vice Consul June 10th, 1945. (see letter 21, personal papers of Clarence McIntosh, Georgetown university, Special Collections.  Arrived just in advance of Crown Prince.  Described as "having been around," but a "nice kid." By July, Dad was making the weekly diplomatic mail runs to Bahrain.  It appears he may have gone through Lebanon to get there, a place he also served in during World War Two in the American Field Service and to which he returned after he left his post in Saudi Arabia.  Dad was fluent in Arabic.

Various Pictures from Saudi Arabia and Bahrain in 1945/1946

(1)  Email from Michael Dunn, Middle East Institute, 7/8/2008  Sands was Editor from 1956-1980, a remarkable quarter century in the
job. In the 1970s he had white hair and didn't look particularly like the man in the picture, but if the picture dates from the 1940s, it
might conceivably be him.

(2)  Mac was out of town at the time and had received his clothes earlier, probably 1945 sent to him by a messenger of the King; but still got his watch., discussion between Larry Roeder and Mac, 7/2008

(3)  See top photo, page 102 in Saudi Arabia and the United States: Birth of a Security Partnership, by Parker T. Hart., 1998 Indiana University Press.