FOREIGN RELATIONS: The Visitors

Long inured to the ceremonial trappings, lofty pageantry and storybook unrealityof Hollywood’s baubles, the U.S. last week got a rare chance to show that it knowsthe genuine article when it comes along. It came−a sweeping constellation of exalted royalty, heralded by the solemn magnificence of equerries, secretaries, aides and ambassadors−and the U.S. found that Britain’s Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, not symbols alone, but flesh-and-blood people, respond with the same human warmth and simple good will that Americans holdout to them.

Of symbols, there were aplenty: the Queen and Prince arrived in the U.S. from Canada, landing, in their R.C.A.F. plane near Williamsburg, Va., at a place called Patrick Henry Airport. Spaced among a dozen occasions of ceremonial pomp, they spent the day touring the old, restored towns of Williamsburg and Jamestown, which is celebrating the 350th anniversary of the first permanent British settlement on American shores. Through it all, crowds of eager-eyed onlookers strained at the heavily guarded barriers, marveled at Elizabeth’s cordially regal attitude, Philip’s smiling nonchalance. “Say,” said one man, “she’s a lot thinner.” Murmured a woman: “She looks like her father.”

Bounce & Burble. Next morning President Eisenhower and a score of U.S. and British Commonwealth officials waited at Washington National Airport with thousands of well-wishers as the President’s plane Columbine III softly landed. Stepping carefully down the ramp and into a long, slow handshake from the President of the U.S., Queen Elizabeth smiled a little nervously, gratefully accepted a bouquet of roses from Mrs. John Foster Dulles. Following the Queen, Prince Philip, hatless, debonair and full of bounce, joined his wife and the President before a swarm of polite but persistentphotographers (who epitomize, the President explained to the Queen with an ice-breakingsmile, “the nearest we have to a dictatorship”).

Mid echoes of a 21-gun salute and brass-band strains of the British and U.S. national anthems, the two heads of state exchanged official greetings and began the great procession to the White House. All along the four-mile route, from the airport to the White House, a million celebrity-jaded Washingtonians cheered Ike and his guests as they rolled slowly in the President’s bubble-topped Lincoln. As the Eisenhower grandchildren flattened their noses against the upstairs windowpanes, Mamie Eisenhower (who changed her dress at the very last minute from peony red to olive green) stepped to the White House porch, took the Queen’s hand, burbled: “Welcome! We have been watching you on television. We have been wanting you to come for so long. My, you look pretty.”

Starch & Gold. Thus began the carefully timed, almost agonizing round of greetings, luncheons, dinners, toasts, receptions, balls, meetings and tours for the royal couple. With scarcely enough time between official functions to change from one stylish dress to another (she never wore the same attire twice), Queen Elizabeth usually managed not to appear exhausted, foot-tired and hand-sore. And Washington, D.C., thrumming with true excitement, turned out with starched dickeys and flowing gowns to do her justice.

Responding to the inexplicable American talent for making high-ranking visitors feel comfortably informal, Queen Elizabeth quickly relaxed before her admirers. Standing before 1,700 members of the capital’s press corps (see PRESS), she began reading a prepared speech: “I am told that . . . this is one of the largest press corps in the world.” Then she looked up, surveyed the multitude, ad-libbed with a generous laugh: “Looking around this room, I don’t doubt that it’s true.”

Seldom, too, had the White House such an opportunity to put on the dog for its guests of honor. At the President’s state dinner a red-coated Marine Corps band played in the front hall, where marble columns were decorated with vines, and the walls were lined with great banks of pink carnations. Greeting 93 big-name dinner guests, the Eisenhowers, with Elizabeth and Philip, led the formally dressed procession over a red carpet into the dining room. There a huge horseshoe table shone with the James Monroe gold flatware (engraved with “The President’s House”) and gold-rimmed service plates emblazoned with the President’s seal. After dinner (chilled pineapple, cream of almond soup, broiled fillet of English sole, roast Long Island duckling, frozen Nesselrode cream with brandied sauce) the President of the U.S., wearing the ribbon and medal of Britain’s Order of Merit, rose to toast the Queen. “There have been a few times in my life,” said Dwight Eisenhower, “when I have wished that the gift of eloquence might have been conferred upon me. This evening is one of those times . . . Each of us would like to say what we know is in America’s heart: welcome to our distinguished royal couple that have come to us. English-speaking people march forward together, to stand steadfast behind the principles that have made the two nations great−of the same faith in their God and in themselves−a belief in the rights of man . . . Ladies and gentlemen, will you please rise with me and drink a toast to the Queen.”

Ties That Bind. Responded Queen Elizabeth: “In Virginia, I was reminded of the early beginnings of the U.S. and of the British Commonwealth of Nations. Here in Washington, so often a focus for the aspirations of the free world, our thoughts turn naturally to the future. The Jamestown Festival commemorates an age of discovery and exploration. There are many indications today that we are at the beginning of a new age of discovery and exploration in the world of human knowledge and technology. Only a short time ago these unexplored areas of human knowledge seemed as impenetrable as the forests of this continent to the settlers 350 years ago. But they were not deterred. Their example can help us to build another New World of which our children and descendants will speak proudly 350 years from now. Eighteen years ago, my father at the White House, on just such an occasion as this, proposed the toast which I am going to propose tonight. I pray that the ancient ties of friendship between the people of the U.S. and of my peoples may long endure, and I wish you, Mr. President, every possible health and happiness.”

The quality that the U.S. hoped most to find in the royal couple was clearly apparent: Philip’s offhand, easy-does-it patter, Elizabeth’s own, frequently shielded personal warmth. On one trip to Washington’s Children’s Hospital, the Queen toured the wards, talking to wide-eyed children inthe gentle fashion children expect from real queens. As she passed the bed of bright-eyed, four-year-old Warren Thompson, the little boy blurted a simple “Hello.” Shot back the Queen of England: “Hello.” Said a seven-year-old girl, who handed the visitor a doll: “Your Majesty, this is a token gift for Princess Anne from Children’s Hospital.” Five-year-old “Butch” Perry gave her a football for Prince Charles, told reporters later that the Queen told him: “Ain’t you cute.” On and on Elizabeth strolled, regarding each child, nodding a motherly head over their afflictions. When she departed, one youngster sobbed because “she doesn’t wear a crown.”

Still more official parties and dinners followed. (At John Foster Dulles’ formal dinner, Dancers Marge and Gower Champion had to cancel part of their performance when Marge Champion’s dress straps broke; Prince Philip expressed his “sympathy for the unfortunate mishap” in a note to Marge next day.) There was time as well for a quick tour of the National Gallery of Art, a football game in Maryland (during which Maryland’s Governor Theodore Roosevelt McKeldin. so one onlooker reported, slapped the Queen’s leg in a fit of excitement), and an unscheduled stop at a Maryland supermarket that sent shoppers into a royal tizzy.

The Glow. There was time, too, for an exchange of gifts: Elizabeth and Philip gave the Eisenhowers a pair of American parula warblers sculptured in porcelain, and a coffee table inlaid with a colored map of Ike’s Normandy invasion plans; the President gave his guests a ceramic sculpture of Prince Philip astride a polo pony, and a portrait he had painted of young Prince Charles.

Winding up their hurried trip with a day’s stay in New York City, Elizabeth and Philip got set this week for the flight back to London. The chapter they had lived during a six-day stay echoed plainly with the punctuation of four 21-gun salutes and a dozen or so speeches, too many dishes of Kentucky and Virginia ham, Long Island duckling and chicken of every fancy description, to say nothing of gallons of green turtle soup, the reiterated choruses of national anthems and murmured greetings coupled with quavering curtsies and cries of “Hey, Queen!” Still, they had seen enough of the U.S. to judge where the nation’s heart lies. And millions of people in the U.S, filled with a new glow of their own, sadly flicked off their TV sets and wished there were another installment to come.