Queen of US diplomacy
Elizabeth is a skilled stateswoman, says Matthew Dennison
‘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. I now hasten to do so,” wrote the Queen, on January 24, 1960. The recipe she enclosed was for 16 people — “when there are fewer I generally put in less flour and milk” — and, as alternatives to sugar, she offered golden syrup and treacle. The mixture, she advised, ’“shouldn’t stand about too long before cooking”.
Her correspondent was Dwight D Eisenhower, then President of the United States. Sovereign and president had met in the autumn of 1957, on the Queen’s first state visit to America, and again two years later when Eisenhower accepted a royal invitation to Balmoral. The Queen’s letter combined homeliness with informal statecraft. “A great deal of beating,” she suggested, was key to successful drop scone batter; she told the president that she had followed “with intense interest and much admiration your tremendous journey to so many countries, but feel we shall never again be able to claim that we are being made to do too much on our future tours!”
The Queen’s letter to Eisenhower was more than recipe sharing. At heart, its ingredients were those of royal diplomacy and Her Majesty’s soft power as global stateswoman.
Warmth and friendliness are palpable in the four handwritten sides of Buckingham Palace writing paper. The Queen expresses admiration for the then president’s recent 19-day, 11-nation tour: one globe-trotting world leader speaking to another, she is empathetic and understanding. Between writer and recipient, the letter implies, is a special relationship. It reflects in miniature the special relationship between their two countries.
For both Queen and President, the meeting between Elizabeth II and Joe Biden at Windor Castle, after the reception for the G7 leaders at the Eden Project, is a significant one. The cup of tea and Guard of Honour offered by the world’s oldest head of state to the representative of the world’s greatest superpower is a symbolic offering, token of a friendship that has been a cornerstone of British foreign policy throughout both their lifetimes. For the Queen, who has met every US president since the 1950s save Lyndon Johnson, the engagement is her latest service to British wellbeing on the international stage. Given the warmth of her encounters with many previous US presidents, it is almost certainly a duty she anticipates with a dash of pleasure.
The Queen has remained seriously interested in Britain’s key ally. In addition to four state visits — in 1957, 1976, 1991 and 2007 — she made what the palace described as an “official visit” to the West Coast in 1983, culminating in the dinner hosted by Ronald and Nancy Reagan at a San Francisco museum remembered chiefly for an iconic photograph of a laughing Reagan beside a deadpan monarch, the latter elaborately — even over-elaborately — dressed in champagne-coloured ruffles and bows by Hardy Amies. With successive presidents and their wives, Britain’s highest-ranking diplomat has done her best to forge warm, constructive relationships. Harry Truman had anticipated a visit from George VI and Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother) in 1951; the King’s poor health prevented him travelling and his elder daughter took his place. Truman did not complain. “When I was a little boy,” he reflected, “I read about a fairy princess — and there she is.” It was the smitten premier’s equivalent of Barack Obama’s heartfelt reflection on the Queen’s 90th birthday: “She is truly one of my favourite people.”
As with prime ministers at home and across the Commonwealth, the Queen has extended to each American premier the same friendliness and lively curiosity in their national fortunes. Seventies’ Labour leader James Callaghan referred to “friendliness without friendship” in the Queen’s dealings with politicians; America’s presidents have not quibbled over the distinction. Reagan described it as a “fairytale” moment, and one of the most “fun” of his presidency, the Queen’s visit to his Santa Barbara ranch in appalling weather in 1983. That every living former US president issued statements of respect following the death of the Duke of Edinburgh reflects not only American admiration for the Queen’s husband, but esteem for the Queen herself. “Ninetynine years old, he never slowed down at all. Which I admire the devil out of,” commented Biden. His thoughts may well be similar after the latest meeting — and that will only work to the benefit of the country Her Majesty has served through seven decades.
— Telegraph Group Ltd