For any Western journalist or human rights monitor or U.S. diplomat traveling the Saudi

Arabia over several decades, it was pretty much day-regor.

If you wanted to really understand what was going on inside the kingdom, you got in touch

with Jamal Khashoggi.

When I started covering Saudi Arabia, one of the first things that you did is a journalist

as you get Jamal Khashoggi's phone number.

Ben Hubbard is a Middle East correspondent for The New York Times and the author of

the book, MBS, about the Crown Prince.

Because you know, the kingdom would announce something that they were doing or some decision

that the king had made and you sort of trying to figure out what it means and you would

call up Jamal and Jamal would answer his phone and he would say, oh, here's what I think.

Khashoggi had come a long way from his days huddling with those psalm up in Latin and the

caves of Afghanistan.

He had moved up the ranks of Saudi journalism, becoming the editor of one of the country's

major newspapers, Al-Watan.

Most importantly, he was that rare insider known for his connections to the royal family

and he was also readily accessible, pretty much to anybody.

You know, you can go back to diplomats, journalists, researchers, almost anybody who worked

in Saudi Arabia for probably a period of about 20 years, everybody knew Jamal, you know.

The guy was everywhere and everybody has his phone number and he used to talk to everybody

but he was seen as speaking for the royal family or speaking for the government most

of the time.

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