A Wild Ride Behind the Scenes as Saudi Crown Prince Does America
- Seeking a new transparency after decades of secret dealings
- The result is often chaos on a three-week cross-country tour
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The phone call came at 8 p.m. from the Saudi royal court: Come to The Plaza, immediately.
We journalists rushed over to the Manhattan hotel, but it was almost three hours before anything happened. And when it did -- when Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Masayoshi Son, Softbank’s chief executive officer, wordlessly signed papers and declared that a “huge step in human history” had been taken -- we had no idea what they were talking about. As the prince left, Son stood still for several long seconds before taking questions.