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In advance of King Charles’ upcoming visit to Washington, D.C., it’s worth looking back at the long relationship between the White House and Buckingham Palace. While American presidents and British royals are fast friends today, this was not always the case.
King George III, of course, was the villain in our story of the American Revolution, and he was still in the picture during the War of 1812, in which British troops burned the White House to the ground.
In the middle of the 19th century, Queen Victoria became a heroine to some, but a villainess to others, when she read the anti-slavery novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” aloud to the royal family. Abolitionists may have liked this, but it was less favorably received in the slaveholding South.
Things began to change in the late 19th century due to both technological and diplomatic advancements. The United States and Britain began to recognize common interests, and transatlantic travel and communication became easier.
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By 1903, when former President Theodore Roosevelt broadcast the first transatlantic message over the radio, he directed it to Britain’s King Edward VII, saying:
“In taking advantage of the wonderful triumph of research and ingenuity which has been achieved in perfecting a system of wireless telegraphy, I extend on behalf of the American people most cordial greetings and good wishes to you and all the people of the British Empire.”
In the 1910s, the U.S. and Britain grew closer as allies against Germany in World War I. In 1939, King George VI made the first visit of a British royal to the White House, visiting former President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
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The U.S. still had a bit of an anti-royal chip on its shoulder, though. Roosevelt famously served hot dogs to the king and queen to show his connection to the common man.
Our nations became even closer as a result of our alliance in both World War II and in the subsequent Cold War. Improvements in transatlantic travel meant that visits by presidents to London and royals to Washington became semiregular events.
In her 70-year reign from 1952 to 2022, Queen Elizabeth II met 13 of the 14 presidents who held office during that period. This included every sitting U.S. president from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Joe Biden, with the sole exception of Lyndon B. Johnson.
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Although the queen’s role was now largely ceremonial, sometimes there was a diplomatic component to her visits as well. When she visited Eisenhower in 1957, she helped smooth over tensions that had emerged between Britain and the U.S. as a result of the Suez Crisis.
Sometimes there was a larger, more public element to her visits. In 1976, Queen Elizabeth spoke at the White House while visiting former President Gerald Ford during U.S. bicentennial celebrations, perhaps demonstrating that Britain had finally gotten over things from 1776.
In recent decades, nearly every president has had some interaction with the royal family: Prince Charles’ wife, Lady Diana, famously danced with actor John Travolta at a White House event during the Reagan administration in 1985.
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Queen Elizabeth also granted former President Ronald Reagan an honorary knighthood in 1989, after he left office. Former President George H.W. Bush had the queen on his legendary 30,000-person Christmas card list.
In December 2000, with the presidential election to determine his successor still in doubt, former President Bill Clinton had tea with Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace.
When I served in the George W. Bush White House, I remember Karl Rove telling a very funny story from his stay at Buckingham Palace with Bush and forgetting a pair of socks. At an early morning White House senior staff meeting, Rove did an uproarious imitation of a palace attendant presenting a new pair of socks to the “Right Honourable Mr. Rove” on a silver tray.
Sometimes there have been diplomatic snafus: former President Barack Obama got some pushback for gifting the queen an iPod in 2009. It turns out that she already had one. Biden got better grades for giving her a sterling silver box from Tiffany & Co. with personalized engravings.
And now, as King Charles embarks on his first visit to the U.S. in President Donald Trump’s second term, the U.S. and Britain are in the midst of a disagreement over the war with Iran.
Charles is not a political ruler, but perhaps his visit, like his mother’s in 1957, can smooth over tensions and help maintain the special relationship America has long had with the United Kingdom.
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