Philip haunted by Nixon toast lapse
PHILIP lost sleep over a faux pas during aWhite House dinner with former US president Richard Nixon, a newly-surfaced letter reveals.
The handwritten note to the president in 1969 has been uncovered by archivists at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California.
In it the Duke wrote to “humbly apologise” for failing to toast his host’s health and success, as dictated by protocol during the men-only dinner in his honour.
Writing on November 7 of that year after his solo trip to the US, Philip said: “After the brilliance of the other speakers and yourself, I am afraid my contribution was very lame.” He added: “That night I woke up in a cold sweat when I realised
I had forgotten to propose your health!”
Philip had known Mr Nixon, who died aged 81 in 1994, for years before the blunder.
Jim Byron, of the Nixon Foundation, said: “I think the letter itself shows the character of Prince Philip that so much of the public in the UK and across the Commonwealth, and really across the world, have come to admire.”
He said the note was discovered before the pandemic but made public this week, as a way of marking Philip’s death.
Archivists will now look for Mr Nixon’s reply.