Part 10 (1/2)

Her Majesty eventually relented and included the Radziwills; she even allowed them to be listed in the Court Circular for the occasion as ”Prince” and ”Princess.” That was a great concession because the Queen had never granted Radziwill royal license to use his Polish t.i.tle* in Great Britain. in Great Britain.

”She did not like him,” said Evangeline Bruce, the Amba.s.sador's wife. ”It had nothing to do with divorce. My husband was divorced, and the Queen loved him. She just didn't like Stash Radziwill... didn't approve of him and always referred to him and his wife as Mr. and Mrs., which irritated them.”

”Anyway, the Queen had her revenge,” Jackie later told Gore Vidal, her stepbrother once removed. ”No Margaret, no Marina, no one except every Commonwealth minister of agriculture that they could find. The Queen was pretty heavy-going. I think she resented me. Philip was nice, but nervous. One felt absolutely no relations.h.i.+p between them.”

The Queen's resentment was real. She had read the press coverage of the First Lady's spectacular visit to Paris, where she had been hailed by the French newspapers as ”ravissante,” ”charmante,” ”belle.” ”ravissante,” ”charmante,” ”belle.” Parisians had lined the streets, waving American flags and screaming, ”Jacquiii! Jacquiii! Jacquiii!” The Mayor of Paris had given her a $4,000 watch and p.r.o.nounced her visit the most exciting since Queen Elizabeth II had paraded through the city four years earlier. Parisians had lined the streets, waving American flags and screaming, ”Jacquiii! Jacquiii! Jacquiii!” The Mayor of Paris had given her a $4,000 watch and p.r.o.nounced her visit the most exciting since Queen Elizabeth II had paraded through the city four years earlier.

”Queen Elizabeth, h.e.l.l,” presidential aide Dave Powers told the press. ”They couldn't get this kind of turnout with the Second Coming.”

Even the President was stunned by the excitement his wife had generated. Greeting reporters at a press conference in France, he introduced himself as ”the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris.”

By the time the Kennedys arrived in London, Jackie fever had gripped the British, who lined the streets awaiting her arrival the same way they did for the Queen. One newspaper even dubbed the First Lady ”Queen of America.” Another ran a cartoon showing the Statue of Liberty with Mrs. Kennedy's face; one hand held the torch of freedom, the other clutched a copy of Vogue. Vogue. The The Evening Standard Evening Standard gushed, ”Jacqueline Kennedy has given the American people from this day on one thing they had always lacked-majesty.” gushed, ”Jacqueline Kennedy has given the American people from this day on one thing they had always lacked-majesty.”

”The young President with his lovely wife and the whole glamour which surrounds them both caused something of a sensation,” recalled Prime Minister Macmillan in his memoirs. ”Normally, the visits of foreign statesmen do not arouse much enthusiasm... but the Kennedys were news on every level, political and personal.”

The Prime Minister did not record Her Majesty's displeasure at having to entertain them. The Queen, who was forever proclaiming her disdain of glamour, scorned Hollywood and all that the film colony represented. Unlike her mother, her sister, her husband, and her uncle d.i.c.kie, who felt cinema was the highest art form, the Queen was not receptive to Hollywood or its celebrities. In fact, she was so contemptuous of a.s.sociating with motion picture stars that she declined to attend Grace Kelly's 1956 wedding to Prince Rainier of Monaco. ”Too many movie stars,” she said.

As Queen, she resisted all attempts to dress up her image. When a BBC producer timidly suggested she show more animation during her first televised Christmas address, she snapped, ”I'm not an actress.”

For the same reason, she refused to wear a fur coat. ”Absolutely not,” she told footman Ralphe White. ”I look too much like a film star in mink.”

She acknowledged her dour image, saying that unlike her mother, she was not a show stopper. At a subdued rally, she noted, ”If it were Mummy, they would all be cheering.”

Her husband shared her resolve that royalty must not descend to the level of movie stars. Like the Queen, he, too, would not sign autographs, and he resented efforts to make him perform. When he made a speech to the British Film Academy, he was heckled.

”Liven it up,” shouted actor Tom Bell. ”Go on, tell us a funny story.”

The Duke of Edinburgh bristled. ”If you want a funny story,” he said, ”I suggest you engage a professional comic.”

Neither he nor the Queen recognized then that the British public wanted something more humane and spontaneous from their monarchy than an aloof wave from the royal coach.

”The Queen takes her Commonwealth responsibilities very seriously,” explained Prime Minister Macmillan, ”and rightly so, for the responsibilities of the U.K. monarchy have so shrunk that if you left it at that, you might as well have a film star. She is impatient of the att.i.tude toward her to treat her as a woman, and a film star or mascot.”

With the visit of the Kennedys, she was faced with entertaining the epitome of flashbulb glamour. The Queen had admitted to her sister that she felt more comfortable with President Eisenhower's matronly wife, Mamie, than the mesmerizing Jackie, who was inciting the Queen's normally sober subjects to act like crazed fans. They clogged the streets of London for hours, clamoring for a glimpse of the U.S. President and his First Lady.

In preparation for the Kennedy visit, the Lord Chamberlain, who usually exercises his powers of censors.h.i.+p only on an objectionable word or sentence, had banned a theatrical review that lampooned the President's wife. The show, set to open in a Newcastle theater, was to have had a male chorus singing: Here she comes, sing do re mi Here she comes, sing do re miOh, what a change from old Auntie Mamie.

Then an actress was to appear in a black wig and impersonate Mrs. Kennedy in a satirical skit. Her routine, a string of barbed wisecracks, included the refrain While Jack fumbles with Russia, While Jack fumbles with Russia,I use all my guile,So the press and the publicwon't guess for awhile,He's just Ike dressed up Madison Avenue style.I'm doing my best to be everyone's choice,playing Caroline's mother with Marilyn's voice.

The mention of Marilyn Monroe prompted the censor's scissors. ”The review deals unsuitably with a head of state's private life,” was the Lord Chamberlain's official explanation, which only added credibility to the rumors of the President's intimate relations.h.i.+p with the Hollywood star.

Despite their differences, the Queen and the First Lady shared a similarity in their husbands, who were charismatic men. Extraordinarily handsome and witty, both were attracted to pretty actresses like fish to s.h.i.+ny metal objects. Neither man was hamstrung by romanticism, and both understood the social necessity of marrying well.

The Queen had not been impressed by the Kennedys' ascent from the Irish bogs to the White House. She still remembered her parents' antipathy toward the President's father, Joseph P. Kennedy. As Amba.s.sador to the Court of St. James's he had opposed U.S. intervention on the side of the British in World War II, so President Franklin Roosevelt recalled him. Understandably the Queen was not enthusiastic about Kennedy's son.

She came around eventually, but she was a late convert. During the 1960 presidential campaign, she privately supported Kennedy's opponent, Vice President Richard M. Nixon. Publicly she remained silent, but her husband, who could and did speak out, made it clear. During a trip to New York City to open a British exhibition, Prince Philip showed a canny understanding of presidential politics. He did not overtly endorse Nixon, but he evoked the ”special relations.h.i.+p” between America and England by saying, ”The Queen was particularly delighted that our dear friend President Eisenhower agreed to join her as a patron for this exhibition.” Then he toured the exhibit with the Vice President and New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller and posed for pictures. When photographers begged the Prince for more photographs, he insisted on posing with the Vice President. ”We can't take a picture without Mr. Nixon,” he said.

When Kennedy won the election, the Queen was smart enough to realize the political importance of good relations with the United States. So she followed her Prime Minister's recommendations to entertain the President and his wife at Buckingham Palace.

Jacqueline Kennedy later told Gore Vidal about the Queen's dinner party, where she sat between Prince Philip and Lord Mountbatten. During the reception before dinner, she talked to the Queen, whom she found chilly and standoffish.

”The Queen was only human once,” she recalled. ”I was telling her about our state visit to Canada and the rigors of being on view at all hours. I told her I greeted Jack every day with a tearstained face. The Queen looked rather conspiratorial and said, 'One gets crafty after a while and learns how to save oneself.' Then she said, 'You like pictures.' And she marched me down a long gallery, stopping at a Van Dyck to say, 'That's a good horse.' ”

The Queen and the First Lady shared more than their mutual love of horses. Both were to become mythic figures and the most celebrated women of their era. Both were monarchs-Elizabeth in fact, Jacqueline in fantasy. The crucial difference between them was politics. The First Lady disliked politics and was totally apolitical; not so the Queen.

”G.o.d knows she's supposed to be above politics,” said her biographer Roland Flamini, ”but everyone knows the Queen gets politically involved, especially if it concerns the Commonwealth, which is all she really cares about. Her political involvement is never talked about, of course, but everyone knows.”

By March 1962 the Queen was embarked on a covert plan to influence the elections in Argentina. She did not realize then that doing her duty meant acquiescing to what her Prime Minister and Archbishop told her to do. Instead she wanted to affect policy. So she dispatched her husband to visit the British communities in eleven South American countries, ostensibly to promote British industry. In Argentina his real mission was to secure the presidency of a friend, Arturo Frondizi, who was in danger of being overthrown by supporters of exiled dictator Juan Peron.

The Queen and Philip had entertained Frondizi at Buckingham Palace earlier in the year, when he confided his fears about allowing Peron supporters to vote in the March elections. ”Only my person,” he said, ”stands between order and chaos.”

The Queen agreed and decided to do what she could to prevent a military overthrow that would lead to another dictators.h.i.+p. Although Argentina was outside the Commonwealth, more Britons lived there than anywhere except the United States, and their imports and exports were important to British trade. At least, that was the Queen's rationale for her intervention. Her husband thought it was empire building, which, he said, was basic to the British: ”They are always meddling in other people's business.... That's why they're so successful at British charity work overseas. I think it reflects a hangover from the years of responsibility for the direct management of other countries.”

Philip's trip to Argentina was the first time in thirty years that a member of the royal family had visited that country, but the Queen felt that her imperial l.u.s.ter would rub off on Frondizi.

In Buenos Aires the Argentine President hosted a state dinner for Philip, who used the occasion to lecture General Rosendo Fraga, Argentina's war secretary.

”Have you been a minister for a long time?” Philip asked.

”For almost one year.”

”Tell me something,” said Philip. ”Do you enjoy it?”

”Yes, Your Highness.”

”Another thing. Have you been in a war?”

”No, we haven't had wars recently in Argentina.”

”Well,” said Philip, wagging his finger in the General's face, ”don't go and start one now.”

In a speech, Philip referred to the good relations between Argentina and Great Britain: ”The really remarkable part is that we are still on such excellent terms after so many years of intimate a.s.sociation. Perhaps it's a case of getting over the seven-year itch and staying good friends forever.” (Diplomatically, he did not mention the epidemic of hoof-and-mouth disease that had spread to England in cans of Argentine corned beef.) The next day young communists pelted Philip with eggs and tomatoes. The police arrested the young people, but Philip interceded. He was in Argentina to help lower political tensions, not stir them up. ”Let them go,” he said, ”but tell them not to do it again. I haven't got an unlimited supply of suits.”

This was the first (but not the last) time the Queen veered from her const.i.tutional mandate to remain above politics. As monarch, she was forbidden to take part in the internal affairs of another country. So in Argentina she operated through her husband to influence the outcome of the elections. Unfortunately she miscalculated: Frondizi's opponents won, marched into Buenos Aires with machine guns, and seized control of the country.

Immediately Prince Philip was evacuated from Buenos Aires, and the Macmillan government moved to s.h.i.+eld the Queen from responsibility and criticism. The government concealed her partic.i.p.ation by sealing all doc.u.ments pertaining to the trip. They refused to routinely release the 1962 cabinet papers under the thirty-year rule and stipulated secrecy until the year 2057. Most people a.s.sumed the secrecy was to cover up a s.e.xual scandal involving Philip, who was forty at that time, and Senora Magdalena Nelson de Blaquier, the beautiful fifty-year-old widow who had been his hostess after the military takeover.

”Look into that story,” advised Peter Evans, a prominent British journalist, ”and you'll probably find a suspicious birth nine months after the Duke's departure.”

”One of Philip's three illegitimate children is supposed to be the daughter of an Argentine polo player,” said his biographer Tim Heald, ”but I don't know the details.”

It just so happens that the Duke of Edinburgh was blamed for a love affair he never had and a love child he never fathered.

”I didn't even know Philip until the Amba.s.sador called and asked me to be his hostess,” said Mrs. de Blaquier, whose vast estate, La Concepcion, is ninety miles from Buenos Aires. ”I was called because my estancia estancia is very secure and large enough to contain three polo fields. The government needed to get Philip out of Buenos Aires because there was so much danger. They couldn't take him any place within the city during that crisis, so he came to my estate in the country. is very secure and large enough to contain three polo fields. The government needed to get Philip out of Buenos Aires because there was so much danger. They couldn't take him any place within the city during that crisis, so he came to my estate in the country.

”He did not speak Spanish and I did not speak good English, so we conversed in French. He speaks the language fluently, like a Frenchman. I had been married thirty years when my husband died in 1960 in an airplane crash. We had nine children. Philip stayed with me and the children at the farm, and the couple who care for us. He was very simpatico- simpatico- very funny, nice, easy. He played cards with the children in the evening, and I organized four polo games for him at the level he could play. He's not a very good player, but he's pa.s.sionate about the game. Pa.s.sionate. He plays with a ten handicap, which is not very good, at least by Argentine standards, and I did not want him to feel slighted; so I found him players who would play his kind of polo, and he was very happy. very funny, nice, easy. He played cards with the children in the evening, and I organized four polo games for him at the level he could play. He's not a very good player, but he's pa.s.sionate about the game. Pa.s.sionate. He plays with a ten handicap, which is not very good, at least by Argentine standards, and I did not want him to feel slighted; so I found him players who would play his kind of polo, and he was very happy.

”During that time, he had three private meetings with Frondizi. Philip stayed with us six days and then was taken to the airport and flown to Britain. He did not allow any photographs during his visit, so I don't have pictures, but he did send me a very beautiful letter thanking me for his stay. I never more see him again for thirty-two years until I go to a polo game in Paris. I sent word to him that I was there with my sons and grandsons. He came over.

” 'Are you the person who was my wonderful hostess?' he asked. I said yes, and he presented me to the Queen. He also introduced me to Prince Charles, who said, 'What did you do to my father? Whenever South America is mentioned, the only place he loves is Argentina because of the wonderful treatment you gave him at La Concepcion.'