Saudi Arabian Prince Gives $500,000 To Bush Scholarships
Critics Call Andover Donation ‘Disgusting’
BY TIMOTHY STARKS
WASHINGTON - The latest move in the Saudi Arabian public relations effort in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks is a half-million dollar donation by a Saudi prince to the President George Herbert Walker Bush Scholarship Fund at Phillips Academy, Andover.Unlike Mayor Giuliani, who sent back a $10 million disaster-relief check from Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the Massachusetts private school intends to keep the money. In fact, the school, where both George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush spent their high school years, says it solicited the gift.
To critics of Saudi Arabia, the gesture by Prince Alwaleed smacks of another in a long line of ploys aimed at deflecting legitimate complaints about a kingdom that spawned 15 of the 19 September 11 terrorists. What’s more, the donation appears to be targeted to curry favor with President George W. Bush, the son of the man the scholarship fund is named after.
“It’s disgusting,” the senior policy analyst for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Stephen Schwartz, said. “It’s vulgar. It shows that powerful Saudis still think the way to improve a relationship is to buy a relationship.”
The $500,000 donation was reported by the Arab News, a quasi-governmental Saudi Arabian English-language daily, this week. It said President Bush “commended” contributors to donate the check to the new scholarship in his father’s name.
A White House spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, said he was unaware of the donation and could not research the question yesterday. But, he added, “I’m positive about one thing: Contributions made in any form are not going to be influencing the president.”
Prince Alwaleed has been waging a campaign to alter American perceptions of Saudi Arabia and Islam since September 11. The results have been rocky. Mr. Giuliani was prepared to accept his $10 million contribution, but that was before the prince released a letter saying, “At times like this one we must address some of the issues that led to such a criminal attack.” The American government, he said, “must reexamine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stance toward the Palestinian cause.”
Prince Alwaleed has also given $500,000 to the Council on American-Islamic Relations to fund the distribution of Islamic texts to American libraries, among them books that defended Hamas and Hezbollah, two groups on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations. One of the books said that “pro-Israel bias of government leaders” is to blame for the two groups being put on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.
A spokeswoman for the Andover school, Sharon Britton, said Phillips Academy — which the elder Mr. Bush graduated from in 1942 — was aware of Prince Alwaleed’s comments and of Mr. Giuliani’s rejection of his money.
“Obviously, this has nothing to do with any of that,” Ms. Britton said. “The money has been donated, and it’s supporting an outstanding educational opportunity. That’s good for the whole world.”
Ms. Britton said a scholarship fundraiser, whom she did not name, was an associate of Prince Alwaleed and suggested him as a potential donor. The contribution is part of a $3.3 million endowment that will assist six students a year who demonstrate financial need, leadership ability, and academic assistance, she said.
Students pay $28,520 in tuition and board to attend Andover. Additional expenses run to $2,200.
Ms. Britton said she could not answer several questions asked by The New York Sun as much of the staff of the academy was away during the holiday break.
Prince Alwaleed’s Riyadh-based Kingdom Holding Company announced the donation on Christmas Eve, according to Arab News. The donation was part of his contribution to “programs aimed at facilitating better understanding with the West, especially at a time when misconceptions about Arabs and Muslims continue to loom there.”
“There are no strings attached” to the money, Ms. Britton said.
Mr. Schwartz said the donations may not change the school, but Prince Alwaleed “gives money to lay the basis for Saudi influence and now he’s starting with the elite youths.”
“And he just happens to pick the prep school the president’s father attended? There’s something profoundly wrong with this,” Mr. Schwartz said.
Another Saudi critic, the executive director of the Saudi Institute, Ali Al-Ahmed, said, “these donations are not innocent donations.”
“The general purpose is very clear,” Mr. Al-Ahmed said. “They’re trying to influence the administration indirectly. The specific purpose, I would guess, is that they’re trying to trap the president and make it hard for him to criticize their policies.”
The Saudi Embassy, through spokesman Adel Al-Jubeir, said the prince’s donation was private and separate from anything the Saudi government was doing.
A Clinton administration State Department official who follows Saudi financial dealings and how they affect America-Saudi relations, Jonathan Winer, said the donation made good business sense for the Saudis.
“They’ve made a lot of investments, be it for business purposes or political purposes,” Mr. Winer said. “It’s critical as a way of maintaining their own security.”
George H.W. Bush protected Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War, and his home state of Texas offers a natural connection to Saudi Arabia in the oil business.
On the other hand, the donation does raise some questions, Mr. Winer said.
If Mayor Giuliani rejected the money, why didn’t the school reject it, Mr. Winer asked. “I don’t believe I’d take the money,” he said. Prince Alwaleed’s comments about America’s responsibility for September 11 were “a pretty weak and pathetic rationalization for evil. It’s offensive.”
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