The Queen’s Most Memorable Encounters With American Presidents Through the Decades
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Over the course of her 70-year reign, the Queen met every President, with the exception of Lyndon B Johnson, hosting and visiting Commanders in Chief everywhere from Buckingham Palace to a baseball stadium in Baltimore. Inevitably, in spite of the “special relationship” between America and Britain, these meetings rarely went entirely to plan. When Her Majesty visited Washington in 2007, President George W Bush referred to her previous visit to the country “in 1776” rather than 1976—casually aging the monarch by hundreds of years—while President Jimmy Carter surprised everyone by planting a kiss on the Queen Mother’s lips during a visit to Buckingham Palace for a NATO convention in 1977. (Her deadpan response to the much-publicized event? “I took a sharp step backwards. Not quite far enough.” She later claimed that she had not been kissed that way since her husband died 25 years earlier.)
Others, however, will go down in history as surprising triumphs. In 1982, the Reagans visited Her Majesty and the Duke of Edinburgh at Windsor, where the Queen and Ronald Reagan carried out a specially orchestrated ride through Windsor Great Park, trailed by more than 150 photographers and a Range Rover full of Secret Service agents. (Nancy Reagan, meanwhile, joined Prince Philip in a four-in-hand carriage for a tour of the estate.) The Reagans later hosted Elizabeth and Philip at their home of Rancho del Cielo near Santa Barbara, where Her Majesty had her first experience of Tex-Mex cuisine, feasting on tacos, enchiladas, and what she referred to as “used” (i.e., refried) beans.
Another gastronomical connection between the British monarchy and the American presidency: Scotch pancakes. During a trip to Balmoral in 1959, the Eisenhowers apparently requested the Queen’s recipe. “Seeing a picture of you in today’s newspaper standing in front of a barbecue grilling quail reminded me that I had never sent you the recipe of the drop scones which I promised you at Balmoral,” the Queen wrote to Dwight D Eisenhower by hand. “I now hasten to do so.”
Below, seven brilliant moments from Her Majesty’s long history of meeting with America’s leaders.
Photo: Getty Images1/71957
Her Majesty had a deeply friendly relationship with President Dwight D Eisenhower and First Lady Mamie Eisenhower that dated back to the Second World War, when Eisenhower served in London as Supreme Allied Commander. At one point, her father, King George VI, invited the Commander to have a private tour of the grounds of Windsor Castle, intending for his family to remain in their private apartments for the duration. On the day, however, the Windsors forgot, and on seeing the Commander approach, hid together under a table in the Rose Garden—the future Queen included. “If Eisenhower and his party had looked up, they would have seen a table shaking from the effect of the concerted and uncontrollable giggles of those sheltering beneath it,” the guest Margaret Rhodes later recalled of the event. When, many years later, Her Majesty finally visited the Eisenhowers in America, more than 10,000 people turned out to welcome her to the United States.
Photo: Getty Images2/71961
President John F Kennedy and First Lady Jackie Kennedy’s 1961 trip to Buckingham Palace proved tense, as captured in Netflix’s The Crown. Speaking with British Vogue photographer Cecil Beaton afterwards, the 31-year-old Jackie remarked that the 35-year-old Queen had been “human only once”, and that she was “not impressed by the flowers or the furnishings of the apartments at Buckingham Palace”. By 1962, however, the Queen appeared to have forgiven Mrs. Kennedy’s barbed remarks, graciously hosting her for a luncheon with her sister Lee Radziwill before writing JFK a letter giving him advice on training Jackie’s newly acquired horse, a bay gelding named Sardar. “Please tell her that mine became very excited by jumping with the children’s ponies in the holidays, so I hope hers will be calmer!” she added companionably.
Photo: Getty Images3/71976
The Queen’s visit to the White House in honor of the bicentennial of America’s Declaration of Independence proved a triumph. President Gerald Ford and First Lady Betty Ford hosted a formal dinner for Her Majesty in the Rose Garden, broadcast live on national television (although no one received permission to film the Queen dancing). Dance, she did, though—whirling across the ballroom with Ford to Rodgers and Hart’s “The Lady is a Tramp”. The following day, the reception the Queen gave for the Fords at the British Embassy offered up another surprise. After being trailed by TV crews for the entire night, Her Majesty suddenly found herself deserted: Elizabeth Taylor had arrived, leaving the Queen deeply “amused” at “seeing, for once, someone else at the center of media attention”, according to her biographer Sally Bedell Smith in Elizabeth The Queen.
Photo: Getty Images4/71982
Members of the royal household later described the surreality of President Ronald Regan’s ride through Great Windsor Park with the Queen, which saw Secret Service agents literally hiding in the bushes. At one point, while the President waved to onlookers, Her Majesty feared his horse might ride straight into a Thames canal—quickly reaching over and guiding Reagan’s horse away from the water. A year later, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh visited the Reagans’ fabled mountain retreat in California, with the President gifting her a much-loved present: a Hewlett-Packard computer, then valued at $24,000, which Her Majesty promptly had installed in Buckingham Palace to catalog her horse breeding and racing programs.
Photo: Getty Images5/71991
Much fanfare greeted Her Majesty’s arrival in Washington DC in 1991, where she met with President George H W Bush and First Lady Barbara Bush. The government organized military bands, fife and drum corps, and a 21-gun salute on the South Lawn of the White House—but forgot a podium to help her reach the microphone station, meaning just the Queen’s glasses were visible to onlookers. A few days later, while addressing Congress, she began her speech with the line, “I do hope you can see me today from where you are…”, resulting in hysterical laughter and a standing ovation from the country’s political leaders. Also of note on this particular visit to the United States? Her Majesty’s trip to the Baltimore Memorial Stadium to watch a game of baseball, which she prepped for by reading extensive notes on America’s favorite pastime.