“There’s the picture of—a public picture of President Reagan laughing with Queen Elizabeth which—it’s just—every time I look at it, it makes me laugh. And, she was saying something like she knew that—she knew that the Puritans had brought to the New World a lot of customs from her country, but since she’d been slogging around the rain in California (rain and rain and rain), she had no idea they’d also brought over the rotten weather. And I knew when the punch line was in that picture because I read her speech before we got there. They often give you—give the press the remarks that are going to be made at a dinner because the journalists are on deadline and have to get their stories into their papers the night before. So often they’re—they get them before the event actually happens. And, I read her speech, and it was so obvious it was such a funny thing to say that I was ready. That’s what part of being a photojournalist is—you have to be aware of what’s going on.”
NOTE: The Queen never met Lyndon B. Johnson who would have come right after Kennedy and before Nixon. Some reasons for this are that his only official visit outside of the United States was to Asia. It mainly was a matter of circumstance that their paths never crossed. Some would argue it did have to do with foreign policy and the ECC on her part, others say not. The Queen was pregnant with Edward during JFK’s funeral where she would have met Lyndon B. Johnson so this meant she was unable to attend. She actually didn’t visit the US between 1957 and 1976. In fact, she has only visited the United States four times during her entire reign: 1957, 1976, 1991 (for the USA’s Bicentennial Celebration) and most recently in 2007.
She was close to meeting Johnson in October 1964 when she took a visit to Canada for its Centennial of Confederation…but Lyndon Johnson was busy campaigning for the election the next month.
So, we move on to JFK.
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