America's Great Game (28 page)

Faculty of the missionary-founded American University of Beirut, the most important early US institution in the Arab world. Second and third from the left in the back row are the fathers of Harold Hoskins and William “Bill” Eddy, two pioneers of the American intelligence effort in the Middle East.

HAROLD B. HOSKINS PAPERS, PUBLIC POLICY PAPERS DIVISION, DEPARTMENT OF RARE BOOKS AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

A Middle Eastern childhood: a young Bill Eddy (left) in Lebanon.

WILLIAM A. EDDY PAPERS, PUBLIC POLICY PAPERS DIVISION, DEPARTMENT OF RARE BOOKS AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Archie Roosevelt, with his host’s son on his knee, and fellow US Army officers in Rabat, Morocco, in 1942, shortly after Archie first arrived in the Arab world.

ARCHIE ROOSEVELT PAPERS, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Archie Roosevelt en route to his military intelligence posting in Cairo in 1944.

ARCHIE ROOSEVELT PAPERS, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

The OSS’s notoriously conspicuous headquarters in Cairo.

RECORDS OF THE OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES, NATIONAL ARCHIVES

Stephen Penrose, chief of OSS/Cairo, and another US trailblazer in Middle Eastern intelligence, in his later role as president of the American University of Beirut.

STEPHEN B. L. PENROSE JR. PAPERS, WHITMAN COLLEGE AND NORTHWEST ARCHIVES

Kim and Archie Roosevelt in wartime Jerusalem, May 1944.

ARCHIE ROOSEVELT PAPERS, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Iran, 1946: Archie Roosevelt preparing for a daring air sortie in one of the opening skirmishes of the Cold War.

ARCHIE ROOSEVELT PAPERS, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Harold Hoskins (center) with King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia.

HAROLD HOSKINS PAPERS, PUBLIC POLICY PAPERS DIVISION, DEPARTMENT OF RARE BOOKS AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

The famous 1945 shipboard meeting between Ibn Saud and FDR that launched the US-Saudi alliance, with Bill Eddy (left) acting in the symbolically appropriate role of interpreter.

WILLIAM EDDY PAPERS, PUBLIC POLICY PAPERS DIVISION, DEPARTMENT OF RARE BOOKS AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Miles and Lorraine Copeland wed in London, 1942.

LENNIE COPELAND/JERRY DAVIS

Military strongman Husni al-Za‘im during his inauguration as president of Syria in July 1949. Behind him are various officers and officials who had supported him when he seized power in a coup earlier in the year, with CIA foreknowledge and, possibly, assistance. A month later, he was himself overthrown and murdered.

CORBIS