Muskrat love and bear hugs: The gaffes from royal visits to the US

What could possibly go wrong?

When King Charles III and Queen Camilla arrive in the United States on April 27, nearly every movement of their four-day visit will be planned, every remark vetted. But past royal visits to Washington have sometimes gone awry − from amorous muskrats to a talking hat.

Let’s roll the tape on a half-dozen gaffes from the past:

Who's your Daddy?

The first time Charles' mother and predecessor on the throne stepped foot in the former British colonies, in 1951, she was a princess dropping by to visit ‒ and charm ‒ President Harry Truman. 

After landing at National Airport, Truman accompanied Princess Elizabeth in the back seat of an open presidential limousine for the ride to Blair House, the elegant government guest quarters where the presidential family was living during White House renovations. 

He took her and Prince Philip to the fifth floor to meet his mother-in-law. Madge Gates Wallace was 98 years old, nearly deaf and famously cantankerous. 

“Mother, I’ve brought Princess Elizabeth to see you!” Truman said in a near-shout. She had been briefed beforehand on the British elections the week before, which had restored Winston Churchill as prime minister.

Which prompted her to congratulate Elizabeth.

”I’m so glad your father’s been reelected,” she said.

Liz! Smile! Look this way! 

During the visit, Elizabeth and Philip attended a reception in the grand ballroom of the Statler Hotel for some 900 journalists ‒ including news photographers who didn’t treat her with the customary deference of their London cousins.

”Liz!” they shouted in an effort to get her to turn their way. They urged her to pose with the bandleader and commanded her to smile. 

She took it in stride. But a few days later, on a brief holiday near Quebec, she was spotted reenacting the scene, pointing her home-movie camera at her husband and issuing orders in her version of an American accent.

”Hey, you there!” she yelled. It was a rare glimpse of her sense of humor and gift for impersonations. “Hey, dook! Look this way a sec! Dat’s it! Thanks a lot!”

Muskrats in love

The entertainment in the East Room after the white-tie state dinner in 1976 raised some eyebrows. Featured were the Captain & Tennille, a soft-rock duo who performed their hit song, “Muskrat Love.”

The lyrics told the story of a romantic encounter between two rodents named Susie and Sam. Or, as the British ambassador later described it in a cable to London, “a vivid electronic tone-poem on muskrat courtship.”

Then there was the dance between the queen and President Gerald Ford.

As they walked onto the dance floor in the State Dining Room, the Marine Band launched into the next song on its playlist.

Which happened to be “The Lady Is a Tramp.”

The talking hat

George H.W. Bush was 6’2.” Queen Elizabeth was 5’4.”

This matters because when Bush finished greeting her on the South Lawn in 1991, he neglected to pull out the small step tucked under the presidential podium for her to stand on.

When she delivered her remarks, her face was blocked by the microphones. All that was visible to the press corps was her broad-brimmed striped hat, bobbing as she spoke.

”She’s gone!” Jim Miklaszewski of NBC shouted. “All I got is a talking hat!” 

The president was horrified. The queen was amused.

The next day, in an address to a joint meeting of Congress, she opened with a joke. “I do hope you can see me now from where you are,” she said dryly to laughter.

The bear hug

The White House advance team had cautioned Alice Frazier that there were rules of royal protocol when the queen was to visit her three-bedroom apartment in a new public housing project in Baltimore in 1991. Rule No. 1: Don’t touch Her Majesty.

But when the official entourage arrived, the 67-year-old great-grandmother immediately engulfed the queen in a bear hug. 

Her Majesty didn’t push her away but also didn’t return the gesture, a stiff-upper-lip smile on her face.  

“They said I wasn’t supposed to do it, but I just couldn’t stop myself,” Frazier told reporters after the entourage had left. “She has her palace, but I have my palace right here, and I’m proud of it.” 

She added: “Shoot, she’s a woman just like I am. If she didn’t have that crown on, she’d be just like me.”

For the record, Elizabeth wasn’t actually sporting a crown for the visit; she was wearing a maize-colored hat that matched her suit.

Just how old are you?

Then there was the time George W. Bush greeted the queen in the Rose Garden for another state visit, this one in 2007. 

The podium step was carefully in place ‒ no more talking hats ‒ but the president opened his remarks with a slip.

”You helped our nation celebrate its Bicentennial in 17–“, he began, catching himself before he finished the year. “In 1976!”

He looked over at her with a smile and winked. Turning back to the assembled dignitaries, he reported, “She gave me a look only a mother could give a child.”

David Manning, then the British ambassador to the United States, said the queen didn’t mind the occasional gaffe. In a life defined by schedules and scripts, she sometimes seemed to relish them.

”I’ve seen her amused when things went wrong,” he said. Which was, all things considered, a good thing.

Susan Page, the Washington Bureau chief of USA TODAY, is the author of “The Queen and Her Presidents,” published in April by Harper.