Examining the evolution of the Sa'udi government from 1901 to 1983, a period of major social and political transformation, Dr, Huyette looks at the ways in which a traditional elite, the Al Sa'ud, has managed to surmount the formidable obstacles of tribal and regional differences compounded by rapid modernization. The Council of Ministers, formed in 1953, is one method developed by the Sa'udis to cope with these problems and represented the first step toward a national administrative system. Dr. Huyette traces the Council's antecedents as well as the changes in its membership, procedures, and responsibilities and the concomitant changes in the political elite and its style of leadership.