America at 250: Alliances, energy and the future cargo

America at 250: Alliances, energy and the future cargo

Franklin D. Roosevelt meets with King Abdulaziz aboard the USS Quincy, Feb. 14, 1945. (FDR Presidential Library and Museum)

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On Feb. 14, 1945, in the Great Bitter Lake of the Suez Canal, President Franklin D. Roosevelt met King Abdulaziz aboard the USS Quincy. The American president was returning from Yalta. The Saudi king had never been to sea. The two men spent one day together. The ship carried a transaction: American security in exchange for the steady flow of oil. It was necessary. It was consequential. And, for most of a century, those ties stood largely alone.