Herbert K. Mallard was once a successful business executive in Boston.

But in 1979, after two workers he had sent to Saudi Arabia were allegedly starved and virtually enslaved by their Saudi supervisor, Mallard took up a new career--that of self-appointed human-rights crusader.

His quest for redress has taken Mallard, a member of the Harvard Dental School Advisory Board, from local television stations to the State Department to the president of the United States.

More than a decade later, however, Mallard has little to show for his efforts but stacks of letters on federal stationery rejecting his appeals.

Mallard now charges that high-ranking officials, including then-Vice President Bush, slighted the workers' complaints in order to maintain good relations with Saudi Arabian government and business interests.

Bush joined those Mallard describes as blocking attempts at redress in 1985, when he wrote a letter refusing to pursue the case of Mallard's former employees, John Keene and Jim Maes [see related story, page 3].

In the letter, Bush said the State Department did not have a responsibility to assist Keene and Maes, referring to the matter as "a private contractual arrangement" which "fall[s] under the jurisdiction of the legal system of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia."

Bush, like a number of other U.S. officials, suggested that the workers seek recourse through the Saudi court system.

But Mallard rejects this idea as "unrealistic," saying that he has been assured by Saudi and Americans alike that Americans have essentially no le gal rights in Saudi Arabia. The StateDepartment's failure to acknowledge this, Mallardsays, is effectively an abandonment of Americancitizens who have been mistreated abroad.

In fact, Mallard says he believes that duringthe 1980s the Reagan and Bush administrationsshielded Saudi officials from such complaints inorder "not to rock the boat" with the Saudi royalfamily.

"For more than a decade, State DepartmentArabists have obfuscated investigations and aidedand abetted the Saudis every chance they got,"Mallard charges.

Mallard accuses State Department Arabists ofbeing swayed from their duties both by SaudiArabia's strategic importance to the U.S. and by atacit "understanding" that when they leave thedepartment the Saudis will provide them withlucrative jobs.

"They have been selling the human rights ofU.S. citizens to the [Saudi Arabian] royalfamily," says Mallard, who also suggests thatprivate Saudi oil investments by influentialgovernment officials have been a factor in theState Department's lack of action on his case.

State Department accounts of the case havediffered throughout from Keene and Maes' version,Mallard said. Department officials contacted inearly 1980 said that they had never said SaudiArabia was a safe place to work, despite Keene'ssigned affidavit to the contrary.

In addition, Keene and Maes submittedaffidavits stating that when they tried to go tothe American consulate in Dharan, they wererefused entry by a marine "under orders" fromhigher officials. But embassy officials deniedthat this incident occurred, Mallard says.

State Department officials contacted last weeksaid they investigate all cases of mistreatment ofU.S. citizens abroad as thoroughly as possible.