Replacement Named for Envoy Who Clashed With Saudi King
The White House announced today it plans to send career diplomat Walter Leon Cutler back to Saudi Arabia to replace a U.S. ambassador reportedly recalled from his post due to objections from the Saudi Royal Family.
In a routine nomination announcement that carried no elaboration, the White House said President Reagan would nominate Cutler, 56, who served as the previous ambassador to Saudi Arabia, to resume that post, succeeding Hume Alexander Horan.
The State Department acknowledged last week that Horan, a career Foreign Service officer who succeeded Cutler as ambassador only last year, was being “withdrawn” from his assignment “in the national interest.”
However, the announcement came against the backdrop of reports that Horan, a fluent speaker of Arabic who served five years in Saudi Arabia as deputy chief of mission, had tangled with Saudi King Fahd. The reports indicated that Fahd, outraged by a lecture from Horan about Saudi Arabia’s purchase of ballistic missiles from China, asked that the ambassador be pulled back.
Nevertheless, a State Department spokeswoman said last week that Secretary of State George P. Shultz retained “full confidence” in Horan.
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