Construction magnate Sheik Muhammad bin Laden reportedly helps to forge an alliance between King Sa'd and his half-brother, Crown Prince Faisal, who serves as Foreign Minister.

When Saud is deposed by religious leaders, senior members of the ruling family, and the Council of Ministers, bin Laden is reportedly among the few people who succeeded in convincing King Sa'ud to abdicate, thus allowing his brother to assume the Saudi throne, as King Faisal, in November 1964.

A grateful Faisal issues a royal decree that every contractor must work through bin Laden, who becomes Saudi Arabia's leading construction magnate.

On his death in a plane crash near San Antonio, Texas, in 1968, Sheik Muhammed leaves behind not only an industrial and financial estate, but also a progeny made up of fifty-two sons and daughters, the fruit of ten marriages.

The lastborn entered the world in 1967.

Osama, eleven or twelve at the time of his father's death, may have inherited any where from $20 million to $80 million to as much as $300 million -- estimates vary.