President and Mrs. Gerald R. Ford hosted a White House dinner in honor of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip on July 7, 1976. The visit by the Queen was part of the celebration of the bicentennial of the American Revolution. This page provides a sampling of documents and photographs relating to that dinner.
We put up a tent for the Queen's dinner. There were so many state events coming up one right after the other that without the tent we'd probably have had to close the White House to the public for a good portion of the summer, and it was the Bicentennial year and the influx of tourists was heavy. A tent over the Rose Garden would be the answer, just a great white tent which would also enable us to invite more guests than we could have served indoors. (For indoor dining, the White House can handle 150 people at one time, and that's pushing it.)
An hour and a half before the Queen's dinner, there was a sudden downpour with torrential rain, thunder, lightning. Three trees on the White House grounds were struck. Fortunately, I'd insisted that our tent have a floor. (1'd been thinking of an outdoor party the Nixons had given for some newly released prisoners of war and their wives. It had been raining for three days, and the chairs just gradually sank into the ground. And all those poor wives, who'd gone out and bought beautiful new shoes, ruined them in the mud.) "We'll have a floor and a carpet," I'd said. "It will be just like a room."
I'd seen it done at the French Embassy and been very impressed, a room added right onto the building beyond some French doors. It was heated and had red velvet walls and crystal chandeliers hanging from tent poles and paintings against the velvet, and you couldn't believe you were outside.
I went to Rex Scouten, because he knew what could be done, and what funds were available to do it with, and which people we could ask for more money. Americans were generous during the Bicentennial year, and so were numbers of foreign visitors, who wanted to pay their respects to the country on its two-hundredth birthday. Lots of them made donations to the Kennedy Center and to the White House.
For the Queen's dinner, we had violinists stationed along the paths, and to be out in the gorgeous night air, with the moon shining down and the violins playing as you walked by, was unforgettable.
The Queen was easy to deal with. She was very definite about what she wanted and what she didn't want. She loves Bob Hope and Telly Savalas, so we invited Bob Hope and Telly Savalas -- both came -- and if I hadn't kept mixing up Your Highness and Your Majesty (he's His Highness, she's Her Majesty) I'd give myself four stars for the way that visit went off.
