World Homes Inc (fka WHME)

[jmhollen]

WHME (AHOA) has really tied the JV-knot with a world-class power broker, with this shrewd move......

Adnan Khashoggi is a dude with heavy duty clout...:

Arms and the man
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Forget that Adnan Khashoggi funneled missles to Iran for Oliver North. And forget that he lives in a $22 million penthouse on Fifth Avenue (now on sale). Behind all that, Adnan Khashoggi is a simple man who, last Wednesday, gave a simple part to celebrate his sister Soheir's first novel. Modesty was everywhere.

Oh sure, there were the artifacts of a life well lived: four-foot elephant tusks bookending the bar; a 12-foot-by-12-foot indoor tropical garden (not to be confused with the indoor swimming pool); Monets and Gauguins and Picassos lining the walls from the library to the TV room. But it still seemed discreet, in a Saudi Prince kind of way. The pianist hired to tinkle the walnut-vencer baby grand, for instance, seemed an afterthought--had he played "We're in the Money" no one would have noticed. Even the coterie of teenage models sneaking cigarettes hardly had the haughtines you'd expect--Anna was a pure delight as we gazed through a telescope into neighboring apartments (none compared to Adnan's).

As the night went on, all Khashoggi's friends turned out. Walter Cronkite was there. So was Abe Hirschfeld, lost among the lesser-known Degas, looking proud to be seen with a man who knew a Minuteman from a Patriot. Copies of Soheir's roman a clef, Mirage, were scattered about, too. As critic Cindy Adams notes in her blurb, it's the "spellbinding story of one woman's struggle to escape the gilded cage of the Middle Eastern aristocracy."

But at last, the delightful arms merchant had to leave his own gilded cage. Boarding the elevator, a suave looking admirer slipped beside him. The New Yorker's Anthony Haden-Guest squeezed in, too. "Your sister is quite lovely," the admirer said. "She takes after me," the stout older brother replied, rousing chuckles from everyone aboard. "And what do you think of the novel?"

Khashoggi paused. "It's a naughty little book," he said, laughing, and his captive audience guaffawed in kind--one besotted editor from a downtown weekly even slapped the former weapons dealer on the back in bonhomie.

Emboldened, Haden-Guest saw his opening. "And do you think it will cause a Fatwa-ah?" the Englishman said, adding a lilting extra syllable. The elevator air grew thick with embarrassment--how could Haden-Guest have broached the notion of political death sentences after being treated to such a fine evening? Didn't he know the book had already been banned in Saudi Arabia? Ever the diplomat, Khashoggi quickly restored order: "I think we will have our own Fatwa," he retorted, rousing hears-hears from a relieved crowd of passengers. If there's a man alive who could coordinate a religious war, it's our humble Adnan.

Copyright Village Voice Mar 12, 1996