PERSONAL FILE

sbHe can neither read nor write--but neither, points out Saudi Arabia's Mohammed ben Laden, could the Prophet Mohammed. The Middle East's biggest builder, hard-driving Ben Laden last week mobilized his construction teams to begin a 600-mile road across the desert and mountains from Mecca to Saudi Arabia's capital, Riyadh. Since setting up his company in 1938 (he learned construction techniques as an Aramco laborer), Ben Laden, 49, has completed $500 million in projects, including jetports in Jidda and Medina, a handful of palaces, and miles of superhighways. His greatest thrill was building a new mosque over Mohammed's tomb at Medina. Says Ben Laden: "To me there are only two things in life--work and Islam." sbSimca, France's third largest automaker (after Renault and Citroen), this week gets a new president: outspoken Georges Hereil, 53. He replaces fiery Henri Pigozzi, who founded Simca in 1934 and ruled it with an iron hand until Chrysler bought control of it this year. The former president of state-owned Sud Aviation, Hereil became a national hero for bringing out the successful Caravelle, but resigned last year after the government sharply trimmed his authority to call the shots in the joint Anglo-French effort to build a supersonic jetliner.

sbWhen the 79-year-old president of the Japanese National Railways--the world's biggest passenger-carrying railroad--retired last month, Premier Ikeda found that just about no one wanted the job of runing the debt-ridden road, which carried 5.4 billion passengers in 1962. He finally found a taker who was old enough (72) to retire and who had never run a railroad. The new president is Reisuke Ishida, an economic adviser to Japanese military governors in Hong Kong and China during World War II, who was purged by the Allies in 1946 and has since stayed in the background. He inaugurated his railroad career last week by insisting that the Japanese railways must have more government aid and less government interference.

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