FOREIGN RELATIONS: Hoera de Koningin!

Like most of the rest of the U.S., Washington dearly loves royalty, but the capital, still remembering the romantic pomp and glitter attendant on last autumn’s visit by Princess Elizabeth, wasn’t quite ready to be enthusiastic about Queen Juliana of The Netherlands. Frankly, a good many photographs . made Juliana look like an unregal and rather dumpy Hausjrau. But from the moment she stepped out of the doorway of the KLM plane which brought her across the Atlantic last week, Washington began changing its mind.

As she stood on the passenger ramp amid the crashing of a 21-gun salute, Juliana not only looked pink-cheeked and younger than her 42 years, but a lot more splendid than anyone had expected: she wore an eye-catching raspberry red dress, a silver fox cape, diamond and ruby earrings and high-heeled black pumps. As she stepped down to give President Truman a vigorous handshake, she had a warm and winning smile, a direct gaze and a jolly air that was immediately disarming.

Friendly Couple. Unlike England’s Elizabeth—who was tense and a little nervous during her official visit—Juliana seemed to be enjoying herself immensely as she shook hands with Cabinet members and inspected the long lines of bluejackets and soldiers drawn up in her honor. Her husband, German-born Prince Bernhard, seemed as friendly and informal: a tall, spectacled man who walked, toes out, with a kind of jaunty springiness and wore a rear admiral’s uniform which looked a cut too small for him.

The Queen—who spent the war years in Canada and lived in Massachusetts during the summers of 1942 and 1944—acted less like a celebrity than a tourist returning to familiar haunts. The crowds along the way as she was driven into the city in an open White House car were friendly but undemonstrative, and she beamed at them as if she felt they were taking a good, sensible attitude.

By the time the royal couple had vanished into the remodeled White House—they were its first overnight guests—the capital was thinking of the visit as a new sort of Dutch treat. The Queen won more friends when she addressed a joint session of Congress the next day. Unawed by the glare of television lights or the big, crowded chamber, she pulled off her right glove with a quick movement, shook hands with Speaker Sam Rayburn and Vice President Alben Barkley, took out her speech—most of which she had written herself—tilted her chin toward the galleries, and went right to work.

Speaking with only the slightest of accents, she thanked the U.S. for help during and after World War II, spoke hopefully of the North Atlantic alliance and gratefully of U.S. power. She was interrupted 13 times by applause. When she finished—”Let us all do the best we can. Leave the rest to God. He will not forsake this poor world . . .”—Congress gave her a standing ovation. Outside, as she left, a blonde Dutch girl yelled: “Hiep, hiep, hoem. Hoera de Koningin!” The Queen beamed; Bernhard smiled and winked.

What Is Cooking. Juliana did as well at captivating Washington correspondents. “It must be wonderful sport,” she said at a Statler Hotel luncheon with press, radio & television reporters, “to contradict each other. You are interested in the kitchen of the world—you want to find out what is cooking . . . who has a finger in the pie and who will burn his finger.” But her interview with Washington newshens seemed to leave her slightly appalled. “My God,” she murmured, as she looked at one of a sheaf of written questions which had been submitted. She had been asked if her 14-year-old daughter, Beatrix, had started going out with boys. Recovering, she answered that in Holland boys were just a nuisance to girls at that age. Then she asked unbelievingly: Did American girls go out with boys at 14? A reporter replied: “Not all of them.”

At week’s end, still looking fresh and energetic, the Queen set out for an overnight visit with her old friend, Eleanor Roosevelt, at Hyde Park, stopping en route for a two-hour tour of Philadelphia and an appearance at the 300th anniversary of Dutch-founded Kingston (pop. 28,817), N.Y. This week the royal couple motored down to see what had happened to another Dutch settlement, New Amsterdam. The big city made it plain that it enjoyed seeing the Queen too: a quarter-million people cheered her as she rode up lower Broadway to be welcomed at City Hall; the applause went warmly on at dinners and public appearances during her visit. In its quest for good will, The Netherlands had made no mistake in sending Juliana back to the New World.