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Informal Remarks To Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends, Thank you for this truly wonderful reception. I have been deeply touched by the warmth and appreciation you have shown me. It is very good to be among old friends - and to have a chance to reflect on what we have achieved together down the years. Twenty-five years ago, as a young man in my early twenties - about the same age as my son who is sitting among you today - I paid my first visit to Raytheon headquarters here in Boston. In fact, my son was born that year -- in 1973. We have come a long way together - and we have by no means reached the end of the road. I feel sure that everyone here today shares my view that the partnership between Raytheon and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been a great success story. The figures speak for themselves. In direct contract and FMS sales, Raytheon has done some Six Billion dollars worth of business with the Kingdom over the past three decades. Put in its clearest terms: The fact that we, in Saudi Arabia, have made great strides in our ability to defend our vast country against air or missile attack owes a very great deal to our joint efforts. We really do have something to celebrate. I want today to express my sincere thanks to your great company for the fine job you have done. My dealings with Raytheon in the early years of the late 60s and 70s were a great educational experience. I can truly say that I grew to manhood in 1970 as a Hawk battery commander at Tabuk, which was then a wild and remote spot in north-western Arabia. The arrival of the Improved Hawk, and the major Triad contract which followed, were further key landmarks in my career. Recalling those years, I want to say a word of appreciation for some of the remarkable Raytheon people with whom I had the pleasure to deal. I shall never forget the great Charles Adams, who served as your chairman from 1964 to 1975 -- at the very time that the Saudi-Raytheon relationship was being forged. He first endeared himself to the Kingdom and to my family by hosting a dinner for King Faisal in New York in 1966 - when the then-Mayor of New York impolitely refused to host him, no doubt for reasons of electoral politics. Later, Mr. Adams was also very kind to me when I visited the States shortly after the 1973 War. He arranged for me to call on Elliot Richardson, President Nixon's Secretary of Defense, at the Pentagon. For a raw 24-year old, this was a formative experience, which helped set my sights on higher things. Tom Phillips, your President from 1964 to 1975, and Chairman from 1975-1991, had the vision to nourish the Saudi-Raytheon relationship and carry it to great heights. I remember how pleased I was to learn that he used to tell his colleagues: " Saudi Arabia will be the finest customer we will ever have. Make sure you do a proper job for them. " And you did! In the late 1996s, when Saudi Air Defense was still in its infancy, Glen Grubbs was Raytheon's General Manager in the Kingdom. He was boss of what they used to call the " Peninsula ", that is to say the Raytheon compound situated off the Jeddah coast. As I struggled to do the best job I could with the company, Glen Grubbs was the man I had to deal with. We had our tussles - which were sometimes fierce - but we developed a healthy respect for each other. I want to say a word of special appreciation for my friend Jim Lewis, Raytheon's chief representative in the Kingdom from 1977 to 1993. In those sixteen long years, he was the key figure in the Saudi-Raytheon relationship. I will never forget his tireless struggle to oversee the conversion of the basic Hawk into the Improved Hawk in time for us to face the challenges posed in 1979 by the revolution in Iran, and the Iraq-Iran war which followed. In the past few years, I have marveled at the way Dennis Picard, your Chairman since 1991, has taken Raytheon to the very top rank of American defense companies with a series of dazzling mergers, acquisitions - and, of course, first rate products. At a time when dwindling procurement budgets on both sides of the Atlantic are driving defense companies to consolidate, Mr. Picard's achievements have been truly remarkable. You are now a mammoth company, a world-leader in several key areas. This is a formidable legacy for Daniel Barnham, your new President and Chief Operating Officer, who has already demonstrated his great abilities at Allied Signal. I am confident that we shall see more spectacular successes from Raytheon in the years to come. Ladies and Gentlemen, Let me now put the relationship with Raytheon in the wider context of relations between our two countries. The United States and the Kingdom have been close allies since the days of President Roosevelt and King Abdalaziz, my grandfather. You are important to us and we are important to you. We have relied on each other for several decades - and through several crises. Our friendship is today as strong as it has ever been. I trust you will allow me, as a friend, to say a word or two, in my personal capacity, about how I perceive the present situation in our region. The United States did brilliantly in the Gulf War - I was there and I can vouch for that! But in my view it has not done so well in managing the peace. You might well ask: What peace? America's two great victories - in the Cold War and the Gulf War - have not brought the peace we all hoped for. Instead, war continues to be a fact of life in many parts of the world. Above all, the Palestine problem remains unresolved - in spite of President Clinton's great efforts at the Wye Plantation in Maryland last month. As you all know, the Arab-Israeli conflict is one of the greatest threats to peace in our region. A just and durable settlement must be found if we are to avoid the horrors of another war. Seven years have passed since the Madrid conference of 1991. But in these seven years, the United States has not been able to uphold the principle of land-for-peace which is the only basis for a permanent settlement. I regret to say that, at Wye, the land-for-peace principle was set aside. Instead, Israel's Prime Minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, managed to impose his own formula of land-for-security. He is demanding a guarantee of absolute security for Israel, before returning any Palestinian territory. This is clearly an impossible demand - as any sensible person will understand. Can anyone guarantee 100% security for Israel while Netanyahu continues to expand settlements and seize more Palestinian land? The Wye agreement makes impossible demands on Yasser Arafat - demands which he cannot meet, however hard he tries. He can no more stop all freelance attacks on Israel than the Mayor of Boston can stop every Saturday night robbery. Unfortunately, Netanyahu will use every act of violence - and there are bound to be several - as a pretext to postpone and even cancel withdrawal from Palestinian territory. He is already doing so. In other words, failure is built into the Wye agreement. But even if Wye were implemented in full - which is a very big 'if' - the Palestinians would get exclusive control of only 18.2% of the West Bank - broken up into small, scattered patches of land which cannot possibly form the basis for a viable state. It took the direct participation of the President of the United States, in nine days of continuous negotiation, to obtain this meager result. What hope, then, can there be for a just and durable final settlement? The impact of failure on the stability of our region is likely to be very great. This could seriously damage our interests and yours. We all need to do everything we can to bring about some necessary balance in American policy towards the Middle East. For a start, both sides - Israelis and Arabs - must abide by the agreements they have signed and which the United States has guaranteed. As businessmen, you understand the sanctity of contracts. A contract is a contract -- it is a signed, solemn undertaking between the parties. It cannot - it should not - be unilaterally suspended or broken or reinterpreted by one side alone. Israel has already signed a number of key contracts with the Palestinians -- Oslo one; Oslo two and Hebron. These must be implemented first. These must be honored first, in both the spirit and the letter. Otherwise, trust between the parties will simply evaporate -- and the peace process will grind to a halt. I believe the United States has a legal and a moral obligation to require the parties to honor their existing contracts. Above all, there must be a return to the land-for-peace principle which is the only way Israel can hope to live at peace with its Arab neighbors. The Middle East finds itself at a critical moment, full of potential danger. Fanatics on both sides seem to be winning. It will take great courage and wisdom in Washington, and in the region, to steer us all to safety. Ladies and Gentlemen, Thank you for listening to me. Thank you for your hospitality and courtesy all through this pleasant and eventful day. I have greatly enjoyed being with you. We have worked closely together in defense of my country for more than three decades and I feel sure we will continue to do so in the years to come. The United States is today the only country able to project power globally. It is the single most important external influence on the Middle East. We pray that it will be a positive influence. As I said during the Gulf War, and at my meeting with your employees this afternoon, if there has to be a single Superpower in this troubled world of ours, thank God it is the United States of America. Thank you all, and good night!
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