Thanks also to Sunlen Miller, Sami Sockol, Emily Eckland, Alexandra Coll, Emma Coll, Cynthia Zeiss, and Victoria Green for their research and organizing skills
Bruce Hoffman, Kim Cragin, Daniel Byman, Martha Crenshaw, Rohan Gunaratna, Nadia Oweidat, Sara Daly, Heather Gregg, and Anna Kasupski of the Rand Corporation’s Early Al Qaeda History Working Group, where I was an ad hoc participant, provided generous support and inspiring scholarship. Anna Kasupski’s work on financial issues proved particularly valuable. In other research forums, Dan Benjamin and Steven Simon made serious discourse unusually enjoyable.
As the source notes reflect, Peter Bergen’s journalism and scholarship have been a core resource for this work; his many writings and his oral history, The Osama Bin Laden I Know, provide a foundation for any credible work on Al Qaeda’s development and Osama’s biography. I am even more grateful for his generous friendship. My New Yorker colleague Lawrence Wright’s brilliant work, The Looming Tower, was another core resource, as it will be for many other writers. Peter and Larry graciously read a draft manuscript and offered helpful corrections and observations.
Michael Dobbs transformed my research by guiding me through the National Archives II at College Park. The archives’ exceptional professional staff made my weeks there highly productive.
Glenn Frankel took time to read an early draft and provided insightful comment and editing. Other former Washington Post colleagues—Phil Bennett, David Hoffman, Len Downie, Bob Kaiser, and Anthony Shadid—helped to steer me ahead. To David Finkel, my unqualified thanks, affection, and admiration.
David Remnick, Jeff Frank, Dorothy Wickenden, Pam McCarthy, Jeffrey Goldberg, Jane Mayer, Alexander Dryer, Annie Lowrey, Virginia Cannon, Raffi Khatchadourian, Nandi Rodrigo, Scott Staton, Tim Farrington, Allison Hoffman, Mike Peed, and Lila Byock have made my work at the New Yorker a rewarding privilege.
Jim Fallows, Ted Halstead, Steve Clemons, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Bernard Schwartz, Eric Schmidt, Sherle Schwenninger, Ray Boshara, Simone Frank, Rachel White, Maya MacGuinness, Len Nichols, Michael Dannenberg, David Gray, and Troy Schneider are among those who have welcomed and inspired me at the New America Foundation.
I am very fortunate to be published by the superb Ann Godoff. Thanks, too, to Tracy Locke, Liza Darnton, Lindsay Whalen, and Hal Fessenden at Penguin Press. Simon Winder at Penguin U.K. was exceptionally helpful. Thanks also to copy editor John Jusino. Melanie Jackson has been my literary agent for more than two decades; I can’t imagine my professional life without her.
One of the rewards of this research was the chance to reflect upon the universal grammar of families; in this, I enjoyed the support and teachings of all the Colls, and above all, Susan.
NOTES
THE PRECEDING NARRATIVE is based on more than 150 interviews conducted in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, the United States, Great Britain, Switzerland, Germany, Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, and seven other countries. It also draws upon government and private archives in Saudi Arabia, the United States, Britain, Germany, and Israel, including original correspondence and bid documents that describe Mohamed Bin Laden’s work in Jerusalem during the 1950s and 1960s. State Department and British Foreign Office correspondence from Jeddah from the 1940s through the late 1960s also proved to be particularly valuable for penetrating some of the myths and generalities that have surrounded Mohamed’s life and work, and for describing with greater specificity the world his children grew up in. For more recent periods, in addition to interviews, the narrative relies extensively upon court and regulatory records, primarily from civil lawsuits in the United States and corporate filings there and in Great Britain. I am also indebted in many important ways to previously published work by journalists and historians, as the notes below describe.
Many of the interviews for this book were conducted on the record. Where an interview subject spoke on condition that he or she would not be named the notes provide as much information as possible, consistent with these agreements. For on-the-record interviews, the date and identity of the interviewer are indicated. Robin Shulman’s interviews are identified in the notes by (RS). Keach Hagey conducted several interviews for chapter 36, which are identified by (KH). I conducted all other interviews, supplemented by fact-checking re-interviews by Julie Tate.
In response to numerous requests for interviews over a three-year period, Bin Laden family members offered only very limited cooperation, other than those in Yemen; senior family members based in Jeddah granted no extensive or substantive interviews. In explaining their decision, family members and representatives cited their desire for privacy and also their concerns about civil lawsuits filed in the United States by victims of the September 11 attacks. Nonetheless, after the manuscript was substantially drafted, Julie Tate and I attempted to fact-check material about living Bin Ladens with family representatives. Through their lawyers, the family declined to respond to the great majority of written questions submitted, but the family did offer a few helpful responses, as the text and the source notes reflect.
PROLOGUE: “WE ALL WORSHIP THE SAME GOD”
1. Interview with Lynn Peghiny, February 7, 2006. Description of the estate is from the author’s visit, as well as interviews with a previous owner, neighbors, and two members of Winter Garden’s historical society.
2. The Ibrahims, their influence in Fahd’s court, and their Orlando investments: JeffreyL. Rabin and William C. Rempel, “Saudis Secretly Bought Stake in Marina Leases,” Los Angeles Times, November 12, 1989. Also, Michael Field, “Financial Times Survey: Saudi Arabia,” p. vi, April 22, 1985.
3. Peghiny interview, op. cit. A spokesperson for Shields said she had no recollection of such a project.
4. All quotations from Peghiny interview, op. cit.
5. Quotations from an interview with George Harrington, February 23, 2006. Also, interviews with Thomas Dietrich, April 12, 2006; Peter Blum, May 5, 2006; and Bengt Johansson, October 3, 2006, all of whom were involved in preparations for the Pakistan trip.
6. Harrington interview, op cit.
7. Peghiny interview, op. cit. “Briefcase containing at least $250,000”: Harrington interview, ibid.
8. Harrington interview, op. cit.
9. Johansson interview, op. cit.
10. All quotations from Harrington and Johansson interviews, op. cit.
11. “This is it”: Harrington interview, op. cit.
12. “For some reason”: Ibid. “He used to go”: Interview with Mohamed Ashmawi, November 26, 2005 (RS).
13. For the dates and amounts of Saudi contributions to the Contras, see Brinkley and Engelberg (eds.), Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, pp. 49–57. Also, Bob Woodward, Veil, pp. 352–53 and 401. “I didn’t give a damn”: Simpson, The Prince, pp. 118–19. That McFarlane said the aid would ensure Reagan’s reelection: The Prince, pp. 113–
14. McFarlane later emphasized in testimony before Congress that the Saudis had volunteered these financial contributions, a claim that Bandar disputes. 14. Guest list and Piscopo: Elizabeth Kastor and Donnie Radcliffe, “Fahd’s Night: Fanfare Fit for a King,” Washington Post, February 12, 1985. Also, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, White House Photo Collection, contact sheets C27237–C27257.