Royal visit

Being an Anglophile I should pay attention to the royal visit to the U.S. the past few days.  Prince Charles has been here twenty some times.  I recall when I first came here in 1971, he was here quite often; that was the days before Princess Diana.  Dean Martin once “roasted” him in a “Man of the Hour” TV program, saying at the end of a date, the prince would ask, “Your palace, or mine?”




Prince Charles at Washington's tomb

Given the places he (and his wife, the future queen) visited (Lincoln Memorial, National Archives, Shakespeare Theater Co, Mount Vernon, Lincoln’s summer cottage at Silver Spring), I can be his travel company.

Prince Charles viewed the 1297 version of the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence at the National Archives.  I often wonder what kind of emotion evoked in him he himself being a “historical” figure.

One of the gifts he received is a US patent application of a polo stick submitted by Lord Louis Mountbatten (a great grandson of Queen Victoria, his grand uncle).  Prince Charles plays polo often in his younger days.

I was dismayed when Lord Mountbatten was killed by IRA in 1979.  He was a heroic fighter against Nazi Hitler and then Japanese aggressor.  Like JFK, the destroyer he commanded was sunk and he swam to the shore and then took charge of the rescue operation.



Lord Mountbatten, FDR and Churchill

He later became the Supreme Allied Commander of Southeast Asia Command and on September 12, 1945 received the Japanese surrender of all Japanese forces with South East Asia Command.

To kill a hero fighting Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan is inexcusable regardless what political motive might be.