IOR/R/15/2/473

This file contains correspondence reporting on visits to ‘Abd al-‘Azīz bin ‘Abd al-Raḥmān bin Fayṣal Āl Sa‘ūd (Ibn Saud) undertaken by Lieutenant-Colonel Hugh Vincent Biscoe and Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Geoffrey Prior in 1932 and 1946 respectively.

The report of Prior's visit (ff 2-9), dated 5 February 1932, is sent to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Sir Philip Cunliff-Lister, and copied to the Political Agent at Bahrain. Details of his journey are included, as well as meetings with Yusuf Yasin [Yūsuf Yāsīn] and Ibn Saud, with discussions concerning the Kuwait blockade, emergency landing grounds in Hasa [al-Aḥsā’], and the latter's administration and financial difficulties. The report is followed by a letter, dated 16 February 1932, forwarding translations of letters exchanged between Biscoe and Yusuf Yasin on 28 January 1932 (ff 11-14).

The report of Prior's visit (ff 15-19), dated 13 May 1946, is sent to Hugh Weightman, Secretary to the Government of India in the External Affairs Department, and copied to Lieutenant-Colonel Arnold Crawshaw Galloway, Political Agent at Bahrain. Details of his journey are included, as well as meetings with Abdullah al Sulaiman [‘Abdullāh al-Sulaymān], Finance Minister; Harry St John Bridger Philby; Hafiz Wahba, Saudi Arabian Ambassador to Britain; and Ibn Saud. Discussions concern Ibn Saud's health, various aspects of regional and international politics (including Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and the Indian independence movement, the Arab League and the Persian Gulf states, Iran, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), Indian visas for Saudi Arabian subjects, and foreign advisors. The report also includes a number of reminiscences of, and comparisons with, a visit to Ibn Saud which was undertaken fifteen years previously.