Wealthy middleman synonymous with some of the biggest scandals of 1970s and 1980s
Financial Times>>> Adnan Khashoggi was a Saudi Arabian arms dealer known for his extravagant lifestyle whose name became synonymous with some of the biggest scandals of the 1970s and 1980s.
Once described as the world’s richest man, he encouraged this myth in a relentless pursuit of decadence at the height of his fame.
Khashoggi, who has died at the age of 82, was implicated in the Iran-Contra affair, acting as middleman in the secret sale of weapons by the US government to Iran when it was supposed to be under an arms embargo so the cash could be funnelled to rightwing militants in Nicaragua.
That scandal, which broke in 1987, triggered his downfall. Following his arrest in Switzerland he was extradited to the US in 1989 to face trial charged with helping Imelda Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines, plunder millions of dollars from the country. Both he and Marcos were cleared by a jury in Manhattan.
Born in Mecca, Saudi Arabia in 1935, Khashoggi was the son of the personal physician to the then ruler Abdul Aziz al-Saud. He used those royal connections to act as a broker to companies wanting to access a market awash with oil money. He arranged arms sales with British, French and US weapons makers, which helped him amass a fortune that at its peak was estimated at £2.4bn.
That wealth helped him finance a wildly extravagant lifestyle, including throwing a 50th birthday party, costing an estimated $6m, attended by European aristocracy, Hollywood actors and former politicians, at which Shirley Bassey sang “Happy Birthday” to him.
As he frittered his fortune away — at one point he was rumoured to be spending in excess of $200,000 a day — he was forced to sell off many of his assets. Donald Trump bought his $70m superyacht, which Khashoggi had named Nabila, after his daughter.
The way Mr Trump tells the story, Khashoggi was forced to sell it for a knockdown $30m. He insisted Mr Trump change the name of the vessel and offered to cut the asking price by $1m to ensure that happened. Mr Trump insists he never had any intention of retaining the name but accepted the price cut, according to Dominic Dunne in a 1989 Vanity Fair article about Khashoggi’s fall from grace.
In the article Mr Trump is quoted as describing Khashoggi as “a great broker and a lousy businessman”. Mr Trump continued: “He understood the art of bringing people together and putting together a deal better than almost anyone — all the bullshitting part, of talk and entertainment — but he never knew how to invest his money.”
Khashoggi died on June 6 in a London hospital where he was reportedly undergoing treatment for Parkinson’s disease.
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