plea for the United States to reopen its doors to Saudi students. Abdullah told American friends that the experience of studying in the United States opened the minds of young Saudis, lessened the influence of his country's fundamentalist Wahhabi clerics and strengthened the two countries' alliance. "Part of it was having them learn about tolerance and diversity," said Theodore Kattouf, a former US ambassador in the Middle East who discussed the scholarship program with the Saudi king on several occasions.

US President George W. Bush (L) holds hands with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah while walking past some blue bonnets at his Crawford ranch 25 April 2005. Tim Watson/Getty Images Abdullah, who ascended to the Saudi throne later in 2005, gave his name to a major new program of governmentscholarships, extending subsidies to a far wider range of young people than had previously studied abroad. The king pressed his Washington allies to ease US restrictions on student visas for Saudi applicants, and he found political leaders from both US parties receptive to the idea that such exchanges would inevitably instill more liberal and pro-Western values in future generations of Saudi leaders.

President Barack Obama's first ambassador to Riyadh, James B. Smith, overhauled the US Embassy's visa processing system soon after presenting his credentials in late 2009. The average wait time for a visa fell from almost four months to fewer than 10 days, he said in an interview, and by the time Smith left Riyadh in 2013, the census of Saudis studying in the United States had risen