 Akins claimed to first find out about his firing from a friend who called to read him a newspaper article reporting it, saying "I presume that I have stepped on a few toes" in an interview with The New York Times.Akins claimed that during his tenure as ambassador he built trust and understanding between Saudi Arabia and Israel, turning King Faisal of Saudi Arabia from rejecting the idea of a Jewish state to accepting the legitimacy of Israel within its pre-1967 borders.In a 1979 interview in "Time", Akins warned of a "growing wave of anti-Americanism" in Saudi Arabia.