CAIRO
He was a small man, with a very neatly trimmed
black mustache, seated in a corner, leaning forward on his walking
stick, smiling, sipping Scotch from a glass that seemed too large for
his frail hands. His face brightened with a smile as he reminisced about
the dictator’s wife who once locked herself in the bathroom of his
private jet and the star-studded, five-day extravaganza he threw for his
50th birthday.
Oh, the memories of a fallen billionaire arms trader.
“My
personal philosophy is I don’t regret matters that happen, good or
bad,” said the man, Adnan M. Khashoggi, who is 74 years old and these
days prefers to be remembered as “Mr. Fix It,” rather than the arms
dealer involved in the Iran-Contra scandal. “I just accept this as my destiny. It’s a personal attitude.”
Mr. Khashoggi has been linked to — but never convicted in — almost every major scandal of the late 20th century: Wedtech, B.C.C.I., the indictment of the Marcoses in the Philippines, as well as Iran-Contra. He is a favorite of conspiracy buffs, who have connected him to such things as the death of Princess Diana (her boyfriend at the time, Dodi al-Fayed,
was his nephew) and to voting irregularities in Florida in the 2000
presidential election (a former employee was a local election official).
Now,
he is trying to make a comeback. After a lifetime spent using his
connections to make deals for himself, he is working as a consultant,
selling his connections.
Instead of commissions he gets
“incentive pay.” He flies commercial now (at his clients’ expense),
which is a big change for a man who once had his own DC-8, and he lives
in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia,
the only property he still owned after the collapse of his empire. But
he is far from broke, or at least manages to appear far from broke,
which has always been the magic of Mr. Khashoggi.
“It is all part
of the mechanism for impressing people, with your talk, with your views
and with your appearance,” he said of his once-profligate ways.
Mr.
Khashoggi was born into opportunity, if not outright privilege. His
father was the personal physician to King Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud, the
founder of the modern state of Saudi Arabia. He made $150,000 the summer
after his first year at California State University, Chico, selling heavy trucks to Muhammad bin Laden, Osama bin Laden’s father. He attended Stanford but never graduated. The lure of business was too great.
The
kingdom had oil money and wanted to build up its military. Mr.
Khashoggi showed it the way, becoming the link between American weapons
manufacturers and the kingdom. He was a young man earning huge
commissions. At one point he was called the richest man in the world,
though on reflection it appears the more accurate title may have been
the biggest spender in the world.
“Opportunity, when it knocks,
you have to be able to open the door, and it knocked, what can I tell
you,” Mr. Khashoggi said in his typically understated manner.
Mr.
Khashoggi became world renowned because he saw extravagance as a calling
card — personal jets, yachts, estates around the world — all of which
won him powerful friends and lucrative deals. He hired the rock band Queen to perform at a birthday party once, and they wrote a song about him called “Khashoggi’s Ship.”
But his behavior also won him notoriety. He was the arms dealer in the
Iran-Contra scandal, in which senior Reagan administration officials
sent arms to Iran in violation of an arms embargo to secure the release
of hostages and financing for the American-backed forces in Nicaragua.
He also was indicted — and acquitted — on charges that he helped the Marcos family
loot hundreds of millions from the Philippine treasury before fleeing
Manila. He had a reputation as a playboy and as someone who hired
high-priced prostitutes to win over some of his clients and benefactors.
It was all part of his game, one that he ultimately lost.
“What
happened is very easy,” he said. “We were on the top, business wise. We
were doing very well and suddenly they got us involved in this Marcos
story.”
HE admits that he never paid attention to what he was spending. And he spent a lot.
At one point in 1987, Mr. Khashoggi appeared on the cover of Time magazine.
The article said that he was laying out $250,000 a day to maintain his
lifestyle. Less than two weeks later, on Jan. 29, Mr. Khashoggi’s
holding company in the United States filed for bankruptcy, listing liabilities of $197.5 million and assets of $9.5 million.
His informal way of business was based on connections, a handshake —
and a lot of cash. He never really built a business; it was all him. Mr.
Khashoggi portrays himself as a passive player in a world where rich,
powerful and greedy people were more than happy to have someone like him
around. He is not ashamed to say that the end justified the means, and
that making money was a noble end in itself.
“If you want to
furnish a house, you need money; if you want to buy a car, you need
money; if you want to have lunch, you need money,” Mr. Khashoggi said.
“You know what Napoleon said: ‘Money is not everything, it’s the means
to everything.’ ”
Last we heard about Mr. Khashoggi, he was still
in a slide, under suspicion in several countries, including the United
States, where he was being investigated by the Securities and Exchange
Commission for stock manipulation (he says he will soon be cleared in
that case).
Mr. Khashoggi agreed to meet at an outdoor restaurant
at a hotel in downtown Riyadh. He has trouble walking these days, and a
tough time lifting himself out of a chair. When he speaks, he leans in
close and grasps the arm of whoever he is talking to in a warm,
disarming way.
“There is a lot to straighten out,” he says, a phrase intended to enlist and disarm.
He did not have long to talk, so he hoisted himself up, promised to meet again and hobbled off to a chauffer-driven Cadillac.
A
week later, he was seated in the bar at the Four Seasons in Cairo, his
back to the Nile. A man seated by his side referred to him as “Your
Excellency,” took his calls and arranged his appointments. Mr. Khashoggi
was wearing a pink button-down shirt, the top few buttons open enough
to expose a still shiny scar from open-heart surgery five years ago.
He
does not appear to be an introspective man. In fact, he sounded a bit
like a real estate broker who thought he was a brilliant businessman
because he grew rich during the real estate bubble, only to lose it all
after the crash.
“Where did I go wrong?” he asked “Nowhere.”
Mr. Khashoggi speaks slowly and calmly, paying great attention to
appearance, only once allowing his frustration to slip through. He
feels, it seems, that those who criticize his ways, his ethics, are
hypocrites. He recalled with pride a story of how he helped a major
American arms dealer who was under Congressional investigation on
accusations of paying $400,000 in bribes to Saudi generals.
A
company executive, he said, asked if he would tell investigators that
the money was given to him, not to the generals, as a commission. “I
said, give me the money and I will say I received it,” he recalled. The
company, he said, gave him the money. Then the executive asked if he
would tell investigators he received the money and never paid any
bribes. “Of course I will say that. What do you think you paid me
$400,000 for?” he said, slapping his knee.
The story had a moral:
Helping friends and making money are what matters. “O.K., I behaved
unethically, for ethical reasons,” he said.
Mr. Khashoggi was
ready to leave; he was to fly back to Riyadh on Egypt Air. He rushed off
to his room and returned in his Saudi robes. He was escorted to the
front of the hotel where a large, shiny black Mercedes limousine waited.
He waved, then lowered himself gently into the back seat for the ride
to the airport.
“With my style of life, I don’t need to retire,” he said before he left the hotel.
sumber : http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/world/middleeast/14khashoggi.html?_r=0
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