House of Bush, House of Saud begins with a simple question: How is it that two days after September 11, 2001, when American air traffic was all but shut down, 140 Saudi citizens, many kin to Osama bin Laden, were permitted to leave the country? Why didn't the FBI question the people on the planes? Why did a Saudi billionaire socialize in the White House with President George W. Bush on September 13, and why did Saudi Arabia - the birthplace of nearly all of the hijackers - get preferential treatment from the White House even at the World Trade Center continued to burn?  The answers to these questions - and ones far more troubling - lie in a largely hidden relationship that began in the mid-1970s, when the oil-rich House of Saud set out for America in the wake of the OPEC oil embargo and soaring oil prices. Saudi Arabia needed American military protection and a place to invest its billions of petrodollars. Like wildcatting oil drillers, the Saudis began prospecting among promising American politicians, including the Bush family. And with the Bushes, the Saudis hit a gusher - direct access to presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush, as well as to Secretary of State James Baker, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and the entire U.S. intelligence apparatus.