Yamani's relationship with the King Fahd was never very good and he learned about his removal on the radio. He went on in return to cooperate with the author of the book (below) which spoke badly of the King and hence upset the govt. and after that he lived mostly in exile.
His daughter Mai Yamani went on after that to become a "dissident" and position herself as a Hijazi nationalist/separatist. For a few years in the 1990's she was very visible in London in the media attacking the government.
While the late Minister had a brilliant career and served his country admirably in many ways he unfortunately was also seen as very corrupt having made billions in oil deals in the 1980's when Saudi, for a few years, sold oil below market prices in an effort to temper oil prices.
From the mid 1970's to mid 1980's he was by far the most famous Saudi continuously on the front pages of global media as "the Sheikh". This title that up until then had been used officially for Ministers/Ambassadors was after that restricted only to clerics in an official decree
After the Carlos kidnapping he became understandably paranoid about his security and hired a team of British ex-SAS bodyguards who trailed him everywhere, even in Saudi and even to the Royal Diwan which raised many eyebrows.
As the most senior govt. official from the Western region he tried in his later years to play the role of the "Hijazi leader", a game former economy Minister Adel Faqih also tried to play. Needless to say that was not appreciated by a govt. that fights regionalism.
All this does not of course negate his enormous achievements in successfully managing Saudi oil for decades + in nationalizing Aramco in a consensual manner that preserved Saudi ties to the global oil industry. Like all large figures in history he had his strengths and weaknesses
This is all the more notable when one looks at virtually all the other large OPEC members who expropriated their oil industry (Venezuela, Iraq, Iran, Libya etc) and mismanaged it down to a shadow of what it was. Venezuela the founder of OPEC has destroyed its industry for example
In fact Yamani's predecessor Abdullah Al Turaiqi was very much in that (understandably then very popular and populist) nationalist/socialist mode and had he had his way Saudi would have gone down that route, which is why King Faisal fired Turaiqi and hired Yamani.
A picture I just received of my late father and Yamani eating oranges somewhere in the 1980's
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