The Middle East’s Great Gatsby

Arms dealing may be morally dubious, but as Adnan Khashoggi well knew, it is lucrative.

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"A lavish host, a party-giver on a gargantuan scale, and a supreme hedonist"
(Image credit: Time Life Pictures)

Arms dealing may be morally dubious, but it can also be incredibly lucrative, and no one demonstrated this more than Adnan Khashoggi. The arms dealer, who died earlier this month, was "the Great Gatsby of the Middle East", says Jonathan Aitken in the Daily Mail. Indeed, when Aitken, then an investment banker, first met Khashoggi in the 1970s, to discuss a business deal, the refreshments consisted of "Beluga caviar piled high on golden dishes, carried to our plates by exquisitely pretty girls in micro-skirts". Aitken's colleagues were then flown to Nice "in Khashoggi's sumptuous private jet, and embarked for dinner on his battleship-sized private yacht".

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