The Foreign Office and the 1939 Royal Visit to America: Courting the USA in an Era of Isolationism

Abstract

The visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to the USA in June 1939, the first by a British monarch, seemed to symbolize, at a time of escalating danger, the solidarity of the English-speaking peoples. The occasion's significance was jocularly captured in a Gaumont newsreel: against images of the royal couple escorted along Pennsylvania Avenue, the narrator declares that the last time the British had gone there it had been 'to burn the White House'.1 Extending a state visit to Canada, the US trip was the result of an invitation from President Roosevelt. Instead of a British minister, the minister-in-attendance was Canadian Prime Minister, Mackenzie King. The sovereigns visited Washington and New York, attending the World Fair, and relaxed at Roosevelt's Hyde Park home before returning to Britain via Canada. The outward harmony of the event, however, assiduously promoted on both sides of the Atlantic by the media, belied the tensions gathering force between the two nations during the 1930s, as each in its own way addressed the escalating threat to world peace from Germany, Italy and Japan. It is an event which has received only passing comment in the many books about the era, including those dealing with propaganda and Anglo-American relations.2 Existing accounts from a royal perspective offer useful but brief, one-sided summaries that do not establish the full context.3 It has been the subject of just two articles. David Reynolds has meticulously examined the event from the American side, focusing upon the visit's place within the context of Roosevelt's foreign policy.4 The British side has been examined by Benjamin D. Rhodes, in which he highlights the 'psychological approach' to