quality:corruption, structural:summarization
Later years

Ibn Saud positioned Saudi Arabia as neutral in World War II, but was generally considered to favor the Allies. However, in 1938, when an attack on a main British pipeline in the Kingdom of Iraq was found to be connected to the German Ambassador, Fritz Grobba, Ibn Saud provided Grobba with refuge. It was reported that he had been disfavoring the British as of 1937.

In the last stage of the war, Ibn Saud met significant political figures. One of these meetings, which lasted for three days, was with U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt on 14 February 1945. The meeting took place on board USS Quincy in the Great Bitter Lake segment of the Suez Canal. The meeting laid down the basis of the future relations between the two countries. The other meeting was with British prime minister Winston Churchill in the Grand Hotel du Lac on the shores of the Fayyoun Oasis, fifty miles south of Cairo, in February 1945. Saudis report that the meeting heavily focused on the Palestine problem and was unproductive in terms of its outcomes, in contrast to that with Roosevelt.

After naming his son Saud as crown prince, the King left most of his duties to him, and he spent most of his time in Taif. His first flight was between Afif and Taif in September 1945. Ibn Saud met with King Farouk during his ten-day state visit to Egypt from 10 to 22 January 1946. Ibn Saud's first official visit to the Saudi Arabia's oil fields occurred between 21 and 29 January 1947 which was organized by the Arabian American Oil Company.

Ibn Saud participated in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, but Saudi Arabia's contribution was generally considered token. The Saudis deployed 800 to 1,200 troops against Israel, including volunteers, who were attached to the Egyptians. He actively attempted to resolve the dispute between the Kingdom of Egypt and the United Kingdom in the early 1952 and developed a proposal for a settlement between two countries.

While most of the royal family desired luxuries such as gardens, splendid cars, and palaces, Ibn Saud wanted a royal railway from the Persian Gulf to Riyadh and then an extension to Jeddah. His advisors regarded this as an old man's folly. Eventually, ARAMCO built the railway, at a cost of $70 million, drawn from the King's oil royalties. It was completed in 1951 and was used commercially after the King's death. It enabled Riyadh to grow into a relatively modern city. But when a paved road was built in 1962, the railway lost its traffic.