Remarks of Welcome to the King of Saudi Arabia at the Washington National Airport
Your Majesty, on behalf of the American people, I welcome you to this country. We recognize--in you--both a leader of the Arabian people and a custodian of those cities most sacred to Islam. It is an honor to have you here.
We were fortunate, in the United States, in calling your late father, His Majesty King Saud, our friend.
We are equally fortunate in calling you our friend. And I look forward with great expectation to the conversations we shall have here of problems important to both our countries because we value your friendship and we believe out of these conversations should come results to strengthen and reaffirm the friendships that we have with your country.
Note: King Saud (through an interpreter) responded as follows:
I have the great pleasure to extend to Your Excellency and to the American people my deep gratitude and appreciation of this warm welcome. I am indeed happy to respond to Your Excellency's call to renew and to consolidate the traditional friendship between our peoples, the foundations of which were laid down by my late father.
On behalf of my people, I wish to assure Your Excellency of our desire to establish our relationship with the American people on the basis of amity and mutual interest. I look forward to this opportunity provided to me by my visit to undertake with Your Excellency and your government a discussion characterized by the same degree of complete frankness as indicated by Your Excellency.
May God the Almighty bestow upon us wisdom and sagacity and guide us all towards universal peace and goodwill.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Remarks of Welcome to the King of Saudi Arabia at the Washington National Airport Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/233889
