The day Iraq invaded Kuwait, Saudi Arabia's news media assumed a traditional pose: they ignored it. They were silent the next day, even as frantic Saudis huddled by short-wave radios or, if they lived near the borders, watched television news from other Arab nations. By the third day some newspapers were writing about "Iraqi aggression" but they offered few details. Others were not so gutsy, referring only obliquely to "tensions in Kuwait."

Jasr al Jasr, managing editor of al Jezira, recalls feeling quite comfortable with his paper's decision to wait until the third day -- and a statement from the government -- before telling its 100,000 readers what the rest of the world already knew: that Saddam Hussein's armies had swept through Kuwait and were parked five to ten miles from the Saudi border.

Outside the al Jezira office the daily sandstorm has died down. It is early on a warm, dry evening in Riyadh, the shimmering, modernistic Saudi capital, a desert city of steel and glass. Sixty years ago, when King Abdul Aziz bin Abdul Rahman bin Feisal al Saud was bringing together the tribes that would form Saudi Arabia, Riyadh was only a collection of dark-brown mud houses in a poverty-stricken country disconnected from the outside world by its puritanical view of Islam and its extreme social conservatism. Even today the Mutawin, the bearded religious police, patrol the city's glitzy malls and markets with long wooden sticks, looking for stores open at prayer time or for men cavorting with unmarried women.

Jasr al Jasr is editing a correspondent's article, handwritten but sent in by fax, while approving last-minute advertisements and checking proofs of the next day's newspaper. He wears the traditional long white gown and is seated, curiously, at a desk beside the glass doorway, where a security guard might sit. He likes to keep a close eye on things.

Was he ordered by officials to stay quiet on the August 2 invasion? He looks surprised at the question. Editors at two other newspapers privately admit that they had been so ordered. But Jasr, a journalist for the last nineteen years, smiles and denies receiving pressure from anyone but himself. "In Saudi Arabia we have an understanding," he says, tapping his head.

The understanding it this: the media will not report on sensitive affairs until the government has formulated its policy on them; journalists are not independent voices; the news they produce must not break the rules by challenging the government, questioning friendly nations, casting a bad light on Islam, or mentioning sex.

The country has nine privately owned Arabic-language newspapers, three English-language newspapers, nine weeklies, nine other publications, the government's Saudi Press Agency, two government-owned television channels, and several government-owned radio stations. They are all responsible for "correctly" informing eight million native Saudis, spread out across a sun-baked land the size of Western Europe, 70 percent of them still illiterate and a small number of them astonishingly wealthy.

The Sauds, the royal family that has ruled by absolute decree since 1932, are ever conscious of the resentment of other families and ever fearful of Arab nationalism, radicalism, communism, socialism, or even a milder form of Islam. So they work to make sure that their citizens see the world exactly the way they do.

But the gulf war brought about unexpected challenges -- challenges that the ruling family is still coping with. From Iraqi Scud missiles to U.S. Army tanks, Saudis found themselves confronted with strange new images in their isolated land. On a family outing to the local Baskin Robbin's ice cream shop, for example, abaya-draped Saudi women, who are not allowed to drive, might encounter a U.S. army truck driven by female soldiers in battle fatigues.

The average Saudi, meanwhile, was baffled about why Saddam Hussein, who had always been praised in the Saudi media, would do what he did. Questions were suddenly being asked about all the money Saudi Arabia had given to Iraq and the PLO over the years, and about the need to call on the help of half a million non-Moslem soldiers to guard the guardian of the holy shrines of Mecca and Medina, the king's primary job description.

At the beginning of the war, many Saudis thought that the sudden exposure to the West would somehow jolt their country forward. Forty-three women, thinking that the time had come to press for women's rights, even dared to drive cars in downtown Riyadh last November. Most of them lost their jobs and passports, and their husbands lost their drivers' licenses.

Religious extremists issued audiocasettes denouncing the nation's moral decay. Moderate Moslems replied with casettes denouncing the extremists. Businessmen and intellectuals privately told the royal family that it was time to allow greater freedom. In May, hundreds of university professors signed petitions calling for political reforms. And, in a stunning development, so did the Ulema, the religious leadership, in a petition calling not only for stricter enforcement of Islamic law, but also for "justice" in the distribution of Saudi wealth, an end to official corruption, due process in the courts, and greater freedom of the press. Never before had the Ulema raised its voice for such changes.

None of these fascinating and significant political developments were reported in the Saudi press. Faced with the swirl of change, the regime called on the media to preserve a sense of order and calm. Even war coverage was unspecific and upbeat. Front pages were filled with the comings and goings of the king, messages relayed from friendly Middle Eastern leaders, and announcements of new economic advances. Television news, read by a rotating series of readers, offered the same safe fare. No dark clouds. No hints of the country's serious economic problems. And never any pictures of Saudi women, let alone women driving cars.

The government relied on journalists like Hashem Abdu Hashem, the editor-in-chief of Okaz, an articulate, confident, and politically careful man in his early forties. "There is no difference between the government and the people. We have the same objectives and the same role to play," he says. His newspaper is located in Jidda, the port city on the Red Sea that is considered Saudi Arabia's commercial and intellectual capital.

Jidda is an older, less conservative city than Riyadh; many of its families did not come from the barren Arabian desert but were foreigners involved in trade or who settled there after making their pilgrimage to nearby Mecca. The city's Balad quarter, with its cramped, crumbling, white-washed buildings and brightly colored wooden patios, is a reminder of what Saudi cities once looked like, before petrodollars turned them into runaway Texas boom towns.

Hashem Abdu Hashem's large, comfortable office is in the heart of a modern building equipped with state-of-the-art newspaper production equipment. The gulf war, he says, helped Okaz's circulation, pushing it over 250,000. It has since settled down to about 210,000 copies daily, still the nation's largest daily, he says. (Since circulation figures are secret, it is impossible to check Hashem's claims.) Like most Saudi newspapers, Okaz dutifully carries a picture of King Fahd on its front page almost daily.

Hashem's view of journalism as a partner with the government in guiding Saudis is shared by most editors, whose ranks are carefully screened by government officials and whose newspapers enjoy free air delivery inside Saudi Arabia and receive annual subsidies from the government. The Saudi media were much more outspoken before the Saud family unified the kingdom in 1932, and then again during the 1950s, when Egyptian and other Arab journalists flocked to the oil-rich country. But by the 1960s the new pattern of government control was set. Newspaper owners, mostly wealthy merchants with close ties to the regime, did not complain.

Nor do most journalists. A bureau chief in Riyadh readily concedes that he never strays from the government's statements. To do so, he says, would only mean trouble. And why would he want trouble? He has a house, a car, and a job that pays well. We are talking in the lobby of a four-star hotel full of Western businessmen and well-to-do Saudis, and his eyes ceaselessly roam the huge, noisy room. Is he afraid of being watched? No, he replies; it is just that a meeting with a foreign journalist might be misunderstood by officials.

Indeed, it is clear after spending some time in the kingdom, as Saudis call their country, that news is considered by the royal family as almost as essential to its continued power as oil. Without a parliament, political parties, labor organizations, or any other forums for free discussion, the house of Saud thrives on news sculpted to its needs:

* When Egypt announced in May that it was pulling its troops out of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia -- a surprise reversal of an earlier agreement -- Saudi newspapers did not point out that this was a blow to the dreams of Arab unity and the agreed-upon strategy of using Egyptians as a permanent defensive shield for the region. Saudis who rely on the Saudi press had no idea that there was new friction between their country and brother Egypt.

* Nor would the average Saudi reader have any idea just who the Palestinians could possibly be negotiating with at proposed peace talks, after U.S. Secretary of State James Baker swept through the region in May and the Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes Saudi Arabia, agreed to send an observer to such talks. While editorials made it clear that the U.S. was now a trusted friend, newspapers gave their readers no clue that Arab countries were even considering negotiations with Israel.

* Nor would the Saudi reader or viewer learn much about Kuwaiti political opposition to the ruling al Sabah family since Kuwait's liberation -- for reasons not hard to imagine.

If domestically produced news must be controlled, foreign-produced news and cultural influences must be filtered, too. This task falls to teams of censors from the Information Ministry's Publications Department, which carefully searches foreign publications and excises all criticism of the government, positive stories about Israel, and negative stories about Saudi Arabia's allies. Arab publications that print offending articles are banned and Western magazines are trimmed to meet Saudi sensitivities.

The censors purge liquor ads and use dark felt-tipped pens to cover over pictures showing exposed areas of women's bodies. Audio and videocasettes are screened for offending sounds and images, too. A Madonna casette will keep them busy, and the censors reject any tape that has a song with a suggestive title. They make sure that Bugs Bunny is not heard telling his cartoon friends that he "crosses his heart," clearly an allusion to Christianity. The censors have yet to figure out American rap music, however, and let most of it go by.

The West, for its part, has been given little opportunity to learn about Saudi Arabia. Major Western news services maintain no permanent offices in the country, according to government officials, and only journalists from friendly Arab countries are allowed residence. Prior to the war, no more than a handful of Western journalists were allowed to visit the kingdom at a single time, and, as one Western diplomat recalls, most of these "were writing about bedouins and native jewelry."

At the height of the war, of course, more than 1,400 foreign journalists were on hand. Although Saudi officials say no foreign journalists were expelled, Western diplomats recall as least a dozen who were threatened with losing their visas. And one journalists left the country, Saudi officials say they did not re-admit those who continually wrote "incorrect" stories.

Despite all these controls, there is dissent in Saudi Arabia. It exists underground, nourished by a flourishing fax network. Western-educated Saudis ask foreigners to fax them anything printed about their country from overseas, and they share the best faxes they receive. A university professor offers me his faxed copy of Judith Miller's article "Saudi Arabia: the Struggle Within," from last March in The New York Times Magazine, with high recommendations. A Saudi businessman, whom I have just met, asks if I have seen Playboy's April issue with a Saudi pin-up. I can tell from his look what is coming next: he would like to view it, via fax.

And the are Saudi journalists among the dissenters, although I suspect they are few. At least they are hard to find.

After mulling over the state of Saudi journalism, one high-ranking editor surprises me by suddenly admitting that he has a sense of despair over the lack of freedom. "We don't have reporters," complains the editor, who was educated in the U.S. "We have messengers. They go to the ministries, pick up the reports, and print what they are told."

To be a rebel in Saudi Arabia hardly means advocating an overthrow of the system. One editor was fired for printing a wire-service story that noted Syria's violent 1982 suppression of the infamous uprising by Sunni Moslems in Hama. The story was considered an insult to the Syrians. Another editor was removed following publication of an article that cited the Tunisian government's handling of Islamic fundamentalists. It was viewed as unfriendly to the Tunisians.

Some of the rules are clear, written down in regulations and statements that have accepted over the years. But new rules can arrive over the telephone any time of day. During the war, for example, journalists were told not to criticize the U.S. At the peak of the war, journalists were also encouraged the vilify Saddam Hussein; later the use of his name was banned. Editors tried to cope with that order by writing about the "Iraqi government" or the "Baghdad regime."

In fact, the worst part of the system, complains a veteran Saudi journalist, is that most of the rules are unwritten. And since there is no prior censorship, staying out of trouble means knowing what to avoid. The result, he says, is that "you become your own prisoner." He has been warned twice by the government that his position on the gulf war was not "correct." A third warning will end his career.

"The rules have reached the point where I do not want to go on," says another young editor. "I will lose my self-respect."

The penalty for breaking the rules varies. Journalists who ignore the warnings from the Information or Interior Ministry can temporarily lose their bylines or their jobs; but they can also be hauled off the prisons run by the General Investigation Directorate, the Muba'ath.

Saudi Arabia is not Iraq, where independent-minded journalists can disappear forever. But it is a place where journalists are arrested by the Muba'ath and put in solitary confinement and questioned around the clock. They are not charged with specific offenses, and they do not have the right to see a lawyer. It may take their families weeks to find out where they are, and even then they may not be able to see them. The journalists stay in prison until the government concludes that they have learned their lesson, or until their appeals have reached an influential member of the ruling family. Once out of prison, they may find it impossible to find a job for months or even years because they have been blacklisted by the government.

There is even a punishment for silence. A columnist's decision to stop writing is seen as a sign of dissent, which invites an interview with officials. "I want to get out of this, but I can't do it suddenly or else they think I'm doing it in protest," says an editor at a major newspaper in Jidda.

The situation encourages the absurd. Television news readers worry that they may innocently emphasize the wrong word during a broadcast, angering officials, who always suspect political motives. The Ministry of Information is jokingly called the Ministry of Denial, because it constantly issues statements denying foreign reports about Saudi Arabia, baffling Saudis who have no idea of how the denial fits into a larger story. The ministry issued a statement in May, for instance, denying "foreign rumors" that King Fahd would soon travel to Jerusalem. Saudis wondered why on earth he might do such a thing.

In the absence of real reporting, fantasies and conspiracy theories flourish. "People believe whatever they hear because they have no news," says an economics professor in Riyadh. He adds that he has yet to read an accurate article about the Saudi economy's post-war slump.

In the lobby of the Hyatt-Regency hotel in Riyadh, where most of the foreign reporters gathered during the war, I meet a young Saudi journalist who has come to say good-bye to a veteran British radio reporter. He had befriended a number of foreign reporters during the war, and is proudly reciting the dates they had come and gone.

He is one of those Saudi journalists who thought the gulf crisis would change things, that because of it the government would have to allow more leeway. Now he is doubtful. There is a polite sadness about him as, sensing an end to his contact with the West, he offers his last farewell. He is thinking about quitting journalism and starting a career in business. "There will be no changes," he says in English honed to perfection by listening to the BBC. "They have too much to protect."

But it is hard to know if that is so, even for Saudis.

The war did bring changes, some quite vast. The thirst for news drove more Saudis to their radios; many stores quickly sold out their supply of short-wave sets in the first days of the crisis. Foreign, non-Arab stations were the favorites, especially the BBC's Arabic-language service.

Probably the greatest surprise was the appearance of Cable News Network on Saudi television. In the first few days of its coverage of the air war in January, Saudi television allowed several hours of live broadcasts. That caused too many problems, however, and the broadcasts were subsequently taped for showing later so the censors could deal with them first. After the war, Saudi TV dropped CNN. Government officials say they are negotiating a contract with the network, but many Saudis doubt they will ever see CNN again.

Nor are they hopeful that women news readers will return to the government's English-language television station. They were removed after the driving demonstration in November, with television officials privately explaining that only men could present the news about a "serious situation like the war."

Yet across the land, Saudis are reaching out to the world in whatever ways they can. As many as 50,000 of them, according to Western diplomats, now have satellite television dishes, which cost about $ 25,000 each and are technically illegal for home use. Many others pay about $ 700 for a tap from their neighbors' dishes. Still others are installing antennas large enough to bring in TV programs from nearby Arab countries. Few Saudis expect the satellite-dish explosion to drastically change their society, however, since most of the owners are wealthy people who travel to other countries and have already tasted their forbidden fruits.

In Riyadh, I meet a journalist who does not share the despair of the young man in the lobby of the Hyatt. "The war opened the doors and windows of Saudi Arabia," he tells me, "and they cannot be closed like before."

A photographer, he prides himself on his brilliant color pictures of the endless Saudi desert and of the farming village that he comes from. When he was younger, he was involved with political activists -- "a foolish mistake," he says, one that cost him months in prison. Yet he was recently arrested again by the Muba'ath for what officials consider a journalistic "error." Like his country, he seems complicated and full of contradictions.

He is extremely guarded in what he will say, yet, without being asked, tells me I may use his name. He criticizes journalists "who do not want to fight and just want to keep their jobs," yet he goes out of his way to praise the ruling family for improving life in Saudi Arabia. To several of my questions about his country, his future, he gives a similar and indirect answer: "Somebody said there is no freedom. But freedom is inside oneself. If it is inside you, you will always have freedom."

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