The_Info_Web/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Kamal Adham.md

category	tags	summary	born	died	location	relations
Intelligence & Government	Person BCCI CIA	Kamal Adham was the former head of Saudi Arabian intelligence and brother-in-law of the late King Faisal.	1929	1999-10-29	Istanbul, Turkey	type with role start fn funded Anwar Sadat payments made on behalf of the CIA to Sadat when he was vice president, as described by press accounts cited by the Senate BCCI report 1970 9 type with role start end fn partner_of Central Intelligence Agency principal liaison for the Middle East, mid-1960s through 1979, per the Senate BCCI report 1965 1979 20 type with role fn owned Credit and Commerce American Holdings nominee shareholder for BCCI 17 type with role end fn head_of General Intelligence Presidency first director of the service 1979 4 type with reverse fn represented Clark Clifford true 17 type with reverse end fn prosecuted United States Department of Justice true 1992-07-29 24 type with reverse role fn investigated Securities and Exchange Commission true probe under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act into Boeing and Lockheed arms sales to Saudi Arabia; Federal Reserve staff learned of it in 1981 19

Kamal Adham was the former head of the General Intelligence Presidency and brother-in-law of the late King Faisal. He was a significant shareholder in Bank of Credit and Commerce International and First American Bank. Adham was a shrewd and jovial figure who straddled the worlds of Middle Eastern business and politics for decades. He was considered one of the true inside power players of the Middle East.¹

Adham's influence stemmed from his royal connections, which he leveraged to facilitate business deals. He was the principal liaison between the Central Intelligence Agency and European intelligence agencies, operating under the code name "Tumbleweed."² His role in Saudi intelligence involved assisting the royalists in Yemen's civil war and later wielding wider influence through surveillance of Saudi citizens and political enemies of the king.³ Joseph Kechichian wrote that King Faisal appointed Adham, born in Istanbul in 1929, as the first and only ethnic non-Arab chief of Saudi intelligence, a post he held until 1979, when King Khalid replaced him with Turki al-Faisal.⁴ Arab News wrote in 2001 that Adham was the first director of the agency, established in the mid-1960s, before Turki al-Faisal took over in 1977.⁵ The Senate BCCI report described Adham and A. R. (Abdul Raouf) Khalil as "two successive heads of Saudi intelligence."⁶

He played a crucial role as a front man for Agha Hasan Abedi in BCCI's secret acquisitions, including the National Bank of Georgia and Financial General Bankshares.⁷ Jonathan Beaty and S. C. Gwynne wrote that Adham was instrumental in funneling money from Zayed bin Sultan AL-Nahayan and the CIA to Anwar Sadat and credited him with pressuring Sadat to engage in the Camp David summit.⁸ Press accounts from the late 1970s described Adham as having made payments on behalf of the CIA to Sadat when Sadat was Nasser's vice president and in financial difficulty.⁹ The Senate report describes the key role Adham played at Camp David as encouraging other Arab political figures not to repudiate Sadat for agreeing to peace with Israel, and it does not describe him as pressuring Sadat into the talks.¹⁰

Adham was indicted in the United States for his involvement in BCCI's frauds and bribery, eventually pleading guilty in New York and agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors. He paid a $105 million fine.¹¹

Early Life and Career

Born in 1929, Kamal Adham was the son of Dr. Rashad Pharaon, physician to King Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia. His father's position within the royal inner circle provided Adham with significant access and influence from a young age.¹² He received a good education, attending the best French schools.¹³

Adham launched his business career in 1951, at the age of twenty-two, by controlling the franchise for Carrier Corp air conditioners. He expanded his ventures to include a TUP bottling plant, and companies that built roads, airports, and imported elevators and computers. By the mid-1960s, his influence grew to the point where he represented multiple defense firms and became a principal broker for weapons purchased by Saudi Arabia on behalf of Egypt.¹⁴

Relationship with Abedi and BCCI

Abedi met Adham in the early 1970s through Sheikh Zayed. Adham became a key figure in Abedi's strategy to expand BCCI's influence in the United States. He was a nominal lead shareholder in First American Bank and was responsible for hiring Clark Clifford and Robert Altman to lead the bank.¹⁵ Adham's role was to provide a veneer of legitimacy and access for BCCI's clandestine operations.

Involvement in Nuclear Programs

Adham publicly asserted that Pakistan possessed an atomic bomb and that Abedi and BCCI had financially supported its development. He viewed this as an achievement for the Third World, challenging Western powers' control over nuclear technology.¹⁶

The Federal Reserve Hearing

Adham was one of four original investors, with Faisal Saud al-Fulaij, Sheikh Sultan bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Abdullah Darwaish, named as holders of Financial General shares in 1978; the memo of the BCCI officer Abdus Sami to Agha Hasan Abedi of January 30, 1978, reported: "We have already given the names of Sheikh Kamal Adham and Mr. Fulaig [sic]. We want two other names immediately."⁶¹⁷ At the Federal Reserve Board hearing of April 23, 1981, he testified that "whatever relationships are developed between Financial General and BCCI in the future, if any, are matters to be decided by the new management of Financial General based upon that institution's best interests." Asked whether it was a coincidence that BCCI had analyzed Financial General for him and then advised other clients to invest, he said: "That is very possible. Such things happen in our parts of the world." He told the regulators, falsely according to the BCCI Kerry-Brown Senate Report, that he had not met Fulaij for ten years; the two had acted together as BCCI nominees in dealings in the shares of BCCI's Attock Oil. "I would like to assure you," he said, "that each one on his own rights will not accept in any way to be a cover for somebody else."¹⁷ Clark Clifford described him to the regulators not as the former head of Saudi intelligence or the late king's brother-in-law, "but merely as a prominent Saudi businessman," and said he had the "deepest respect for his [Adham's] character, for his reputation, for his honor and for his integrity."¹⁷ In early drafts of the arrangement by which Clifford and Robert Altman acquired CCAH shares, Adham, with BCCI as back-up, was to be bound to repurchase their shares at any time at their discretion; the requirement was never discussed with him, which the Senate report took as showing that Clifford, Altman and BCCI regarded him "as no more than a nominee for BCCI."¹⁸

In a letter to the Federal Reserve of April 10, 1991, Adham gave another account of the investment's origin: a friend, Hasan Yassin, had told him Financial General would be a good investment, and he had brought it to BCCI "as his business agent." The Senate report called this "completely inconsistent" with the accounts of Bert Lance, the The Washington Post and Robert Altman, and noted that Lance had never heard of Yassin.¹⁷

The Senate report states that the Federal Reserve asked the Central Intelligence Agency in 1981 whether it held derogatory information on the Middle Eastern shareholders of CCAH. The CIA replied that it had none, and did not tell the Federal Reserve that Adham and Abdul Raouf Khalil were intelligence liaisons of the United States. Adham had also been the subject of a Securities and Exchange Commission probe under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act into Boeing and Lockheed arms sales to Saudi Arabia. The report states that Federal Reserve staff learned of the intelligence contacts and of the commission's probe into Adham's and Faisal al-Fulaij's alleged receipt of bribes in 1981.¹⁹

Camp David and the Federal Reserve hearing

Adham was the CIA's principal liaison for the Middle East from the mid-1960s through 1979, according to the Senate report, and at the Federal Reserve hearing of April 23, 1981 he did not mention that background, his historic ties to the CIA, or that he had acted as the most important liaison between the United States and his friend Sadat in the negotiation of the Camp David accords.²⁰ Clark Clifford, in sworn interrogatories, said he believed Adham's roles in Camp David and in the simultaneous takeover of Financial General were coincidence, and that Adham had told him of his friendship with Sadat without mentioning any role in Camp David.²¹ Adham told U.S. investigators that his involvement and BCCI's purchase of First American were unrelated to Camp David.²²

Intelligence Background

The Senate report recorded that the CIA, asked about the CCAH shareholders, told the Federal Reserve it had no derogatory information on them, without telling it that Adham and Abdul Raouf Khalil were "the past and then-current Saudi intelligence liaisons to the United States," or that Adham and Fulaij had been the subject of a Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act into arms sales to Saudi Arabia by Boeing and Lockheed Aircraft Company. Paul Volcker, who as chairman of the Federal Reserve signed the 1981 approval, testified in 1991 that he "wasn't aware" of Adham's intelligence background and that it "might send an eyebrow or two up." The Virginia bank regulator Sidney Bailey asked the State Department and the CIA for information on the shareholders and received none; "at the time," the report found, "the CIA knew precisely who Adham was."¹⁷²³

Plea

On July 29, 1992, the United States Department of Justice announced that Adham and his accountant, Sayed Jawhary, had pleaded guilty to charges arising from the BCCI case, and that Adham had agreed to cooperate with investigators and to pay 105 million dollars in reparations and fines.²⁴

Footnotes

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1. Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 197. ↩︎

2. Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 199. ↩︎

3. Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 199. ↩︎

4. Joseph A. Kechichian, "The man behind the scenes: Kamal Adham served rulers of Saudi Arabia with distinction," Gulf News, February 12, 2010. https://gulfnews.com/uae/the-man-behind-the-scenes-1.581564 ↩︎

5. "Prince Nawaf new intelligence chief," Arab News, September 1, 2001. https://www.arabnews.com/node/214954 ↩︎

6. Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate. December 1992, ch. 14, "Abu Dhabi: BCCI's Founding and Majority Stockholders." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/14abudhabi.htm ↩︎

7. Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 200. ↩︎

8. Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 200. ↩︎

9. U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, S. Prt. 102-140, December 1992, pp. 299-300 and note 779, quoting Bob Woodward, Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981-1987, Simon and Schuster, 1987, p. 352. ↩︎

10. S. Prt. 102-140, p. 301 (Camp David finding): "The key role played by Adham in Camp David was apparently to encourage other Arab political figures not to repudiate Sadat for agreeing to peace with Israel." ↩︎

11. Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 14. ↩︎

12. Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 203. ↩︎

13. Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 203. ↩︎

14. Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 198. ↩︎

15. Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 197. ↩︎

16. Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 310. ↩︎

17. Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate. December 1992, ch. 6, "BCCI in the United States: Initial Entry." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/06early.htm ↩︎

18. Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate. December 1992, ch. 13, "Clark Clifford and Robert Altman." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/13clifford.htm ↩︎

19. Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate. December 1992, ch. 11, "BCCI, the CIA and Foreign Intelligence" (the CIA's reply to the Federal Reserve; the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act probe; text following notes 10 to 12). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/11intel.htm ↩︎

20. S. Prt. 102-140, pp. 299-300 (CIA liaison; Federal Reserve testimony of April 23, 1981), with notes 778 and 783. ↩︎

21. S. Prt. 102-140, p. 301, note 789 (Clark Clifford sworn interrogatories). ↩︎

22. S. Prt. 102-140, p. 301 (Adham's account to U.S. investigators, as summarized by the report). ↩︎

23. Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate. December 1992, ch. 11, "BCCI, the CIA and Foreign Intelligence." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/11intel.htm ↩︎

24. "Clifford, Altman indicted in BCCI bank fraud," United Press International, July 29, 1992. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1992/07/29/Clifford-Altman-indicted-in-BCCI-bank-fraud/5122712382400/ ↩︎