"I may be saying things that I would not tell many other people," Saudi Arabia's King Faisal cautioned while discussing the Arab-Israeli conflict with some Americans last week. His audience was flattered, but not for the first time. After leaving Washington on Jan. 17, the 53 U.S. businessmen, journalists and TIME editors and others on TIME'S Middle East news tour found themselves the subjects of earnest attention by the area's Kings, Emirs, Prime Ministers, and Presidents.

The two-week, eleven-nation tour took the Americans 16,300 miles, through a crucial arena of world events. Like the six previous TIME news tours, it was designed to enable a group of influential and concerned citizens, traveling at their own expense, to seek information from the best sources available to TIME. Arrangements for the tour were made by Chief of Correspondents Murray Gart and Assistant Publisher Lane Fortinberry, with the help of TIME bureau chiefs in the Middle East. For the travelers, the tour provided a unique opportunity to learn firsthand about a geopolitically vital region, and to pose hard questions to heads of state on oil and investment policy, petrodollar recycling and the prospects for war or peace. The access granted to the group by Middle East rulers was well merited; collectively, the businessmen on the TIME tour represented companies that employ more than 1 1/2 million people and had 1974 sales of nearly $100 billion. TIME'S contingent included Board Chairman Andrew Heiskell, Editor in Chief Hedley Donovan, President James R. Shepley and myself. Managing Editor Henry Grunwald and World Section Senior Editor John Elson represented TIME'S editorial staff, along with Gart and incoming Deputy Chief of Correspondents Richard Duncan.

Accompanying them were William Anderson, chairman and president, NCR Corp.; James Bere, president, Borg-Warner Corp.; Edgar Bronfman, president, the Seagram Co. Ltd.; Edward Carlson, chairman, United Air Lines; Myron Du Bain, president, Fireman's Fund American Insurance Cos.; Donald Frey, chairman, Bell & Howell Co.; John Harper, chairman, Aluminum Co. of America; Alexander Heard, chancellor, Vanderbilt University; Henry Heinz II, chairman, H. J. Heinz Co.; Harry Henshel, chairman, Bulova Watch Co.; William Hewitt, chairman, Deere & Co.; Lee lacocca, president, the Ford Motor Co.; J. Kenneth Jamieson, chairman, Exxon Corp.; John Lawson, chairman, Marine Midland Bank--New York; Walter Levy, president, W.J. Levy Consultants Corp.; Sol Linowitz, senior partner, Coudert Brothers; Stewart Long, regional vice president, International, Trans World Airlines, Inc.; Robert Malott, chairman and president, FMC Corp.; Andrew McNally IV, president, Rand McNally & Co.; Walter McNerney, president, Blue Cross Association; Raymond Mulligan, president, Liggett & Myers, Inc.; Anthony O'Reilly, president, H.J. Heinz Co.; Frank Pace Jr., president,International Executive Service Corps; Henry Parks Jr., chairman, Parks Sausage Co.; Bert Phillips, president, Clark Equipment Co.; Charles Pilliod Jr., chairman, Goody ear Tire & Rubber Co.; Robert Platt, president, the Magnavox Co.; William Roesch, president, Kaiser Industries Corp.; Ed ward Rust, president, State Farm Insurance Cos.; Chauncey Schmidt, president, First National Bank of Chicago; Charles Shirk, president, the Austin Co.; Forrest Shumway, president, the Signal Cos. Inc.; Orlando Thomas, chairman, B.F. Goodrich Co.; Gerald Trautman, chairman, the Greyhound Corp.; Thomas Wilcox, chairman and president, Crocker National Bank.

For the tour group, the two weeks included a busy round of interviews, dinners, receptions and seminars that left little free time for ordinary sightseeing. Schedules for most days began before 8 a.m. and often continued past midnight. Besides King Faisal, the leaders who met with the group included Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Presidents Anwar Sadat of Egypt, Hafez Assad of Syria, and Houari Boumedienne of Algeria, King Hussein of Jordan, the Emir of Kuwait, and the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi.

The first interview took place in Aswan, where an amiable, pipe-smoking Anwar Sadat met with the group in the New Cataract Hotel. He expressed hope for further progress on the Sinai front and welcomed more American investment in Egypt's developing economy. The next day, in Beirut, the tour spent one of its most stimulating afternoons in a lively exchange with members of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The discussion left the businessmen deeply impressed with the cogency of the refugee activists' arguments.

In the major "confrontation" countries, the issues of war and peace were the main topics. In Syria, the group members were driven directly from the airport across a rocky plain to the Golan Heights, where they inspected the scene of a pitched tank battle of the 1973 war. Two days later, when they crossed the Jordan River into Israel, their hosts ushered them into two huge air-force helicopters for an inspection tour of the Israeli side of the battle line and a detailed briefing by Raphael Eitan, the major general who heads the Israeli "Northern Command." Standing on a destroyed Soviet T-62 tank, Eitan said pessimistically: "No power hi the world can guarantee us that the Syrians are not going to attack except our own strength in these hills."

In Damascus, President Assad had broken off his dialogue with the Americans to send for a war map to make his point. Two nights later in Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Rabin illustrated his opposing position with a map of the same territory. The balanced view of the Golan's strategic terrain provided an invaluable understanding for the group, but the emphasis put on the Heights by both sides underscored the ominous possibility that renewed fighting there might shatter the Middle East's fragile peace.

Landing in the evening in Kuwait, the businessmen passed over brilliant flares of burning gas from acres of oilfields. In Dubai they toured the Persian Gulf harbor in the Sheik's dhow. The hour-long audience with Faisal (see THE WORLD) took place beneath crystal chandeliers in the royal palace in Riyadh while bodyguards poured tiny cups of bitter coffee.

Throughout the Croesus-rich nations of the Persian Gulf, the businessmen encountered a welcome hunger for U.S. management know-how. When Saudi Heir Apparent Prince Fahd Ibn Abdul Aziz warned that American firms risked losing Saudi business because of slow deliveries, the group formed an impromptu committee to advise the Saudis on ways to streamline their purchasing procedures in the U.S. Arab hospitality was generous. As guests of Prince Salman, governor of Riyadh, the businessmen sipped coffee around a bonfire, then retired to a large black tent as a chilly drizzle began. Inside, they sat cross-legged on carpets and feasted on whole roast lamb, spiced rice and Arab delicacies. En route back to the U.S., the group conferred with President Boumedienne in Algiers' Palais du Peuple on development policies for the Third World, then flew over the Atlas Mountains to Rabat, where they talked with Moroccan government officials about their country's economy.

In a busy two weeks, the group had little time to take in the beauty of the region. But even seen in passing, some sights linger: the minarets and mosques of Cairo, Jerusalem's Wailing Wall and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Sea of Galilee gleaming beneath the war-ravaged Golan. It was a crucial time to visit the Middle East, and the Americans came away guardedly optimistic that peace and prosperity, which seem so near in the region, may soon be achieved.

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