Correspondence with Sir L B Grafftey-Smith concerning the meeting between Winston Churchill (UK Prime Minister) and King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia in February 1945

This file concerns correspondence between the former Chargé d’Affaires in Jedda [Jeddah] in 1945 Sir Laurence Grafftey-Smith and HMG regarding the meeting between former Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the former King of Saudi Arabia Ibn Saud in Egypt in January 1945. It concerns Grafftey-Smith’s misgivings regarding the reporting of the meeting in the recently published book The Kingdom by Robert Lacey and his request for evidence regarding whether Churchill raised the question of Arab relations with ‘Zionist Palestine’ during the discussion. The file also refers to Churchill’s flouting of Wahhabi custom concerning alcohol and tobacco and US President Franklin D Roosevelt’s assurances to Ibn Saud that the US would not ‘assist the Jews against the Arabs’.