Prince Charles and Camilla Begin a Weeklong US Tour

Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, arrived at JFK International Airport today on a private chartered jet for a week’s vacation stateside. This is the first official overseas trip for the couple since they married in April. Britain’s U.S. ambassador, Sir David Manning, and his wife Catherine met the royal tourists at the airport and joined them on their visit to the World Trade Center site. Afterward they presided over a dedication of a memorial garden to honor British victims of the 9/11 attacks, at nearby Hanover Square, which was named for King George I of Hanover. The royals also plan to visit Washington, New Orleans, and San Francisco.

The tour is ostensibly designed to celebrate the longstanding ties between the United States and Great Britain, but most people know the real motivation for the American display of royal wedded bliss is part of a careful plan by the palace to win acceptance abroad for the duchess, since Princess Diana was much loved in the United States. The British press predicted from the beginning that the tour by Charles and his wife would cause little excitement in the United States, and so far their prediction is on target. The Daily Mail newspaper quoted a headline in USA Today magazine, saying "The trip has been dismissed as a ‘royal bore’ by Americans."

British papers supported their claims of American disinterest with cold hard facts—a USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll showed that 59% of respondents said they were "not at all interested" in Charles and Camilla’s visit. Of the remaining people asked, 22% were "not too interested," 13% were "somewhat interested," and only 6% were "very interested." Only 19% said they would like to meet the royal couple in person, compared to 31% who responded that way when asked in 1985 about whether they would like to meet Charles and Diana. For the current poll, Gallup interviewed over 1,000 people age 18 and older by telephone on October 21 through 23.

According to The Guardian newspaper, Charles and Camilla are visiting the United States with the goal of winning over the American public, even though they appear to have "absolutely no interest in the eight-day royal visit." The New York correspondent for London’s Daily Mirror newspaper wrote that most Americans have no idea who Camilla is. Their correspondent in Times Square showed passers-by a photograph of the Duchess of Cornwall asking if they could identify her, and the myriad of guesses ranged from Nancy Reagan to Barbara Cartland to Madonna.

The official word from the prince’s office is that the trip is designed to recognize "the importance of the relationship between the two countries and their common bonds and shared traditions." Clever wording to camouflage the real purpose of the trip, to win acceptance for the prince’s scarlet-lettered wife. Camilla has been long reviled in the British press and among American Diana worshipers as the woman who broke up the royal romance of the 20th century. "There were three of us in that marriage," Diana told the media in 1995, the year before her marriage to Charles ended. Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris the following year. Mark Abrams, an executive of Guardian Life Insurance Co., summed the visit up well when he commented, "It’s sort of like an ongoing saga, one of the longest-running dramatic TV series."