King's Greeting

The way of gawky, Lincolnesque John Gilbert Winant last week lay over water: by Clipper to Lisbon over the Atlantic, from Lisbon by British ferry-plane, passing a Lufthansa Fokker enroute to Switzerland, to Bristol over the Bay of Biscay. As the plane circled to land at the Bristol airfield, a guard of honor ringed the field. For John Winant was going to London to visit the King as Ambassador to the Court of St. James's.

Out of the plane with him stepped chubby Braintruster Benjamin V. Cohen, the Embassy's new legal adviser, and Chemist James Bryant Conant, President of Harvard, in England on a special mission (to study scientific war methods).

Hardly had the Ambassador's party left the field when another plane glided in. Aboard were British bigwigs, the Duke of Kent, Prime Minister Churchill's Brendan Bracken, American diplomats. It was the official welcoming party, five minutes late. The Ambassador's plane had been an hour early.

With quiet reserve, the Ambassador posed for news cameras, reviewed his guard of honor. To interviewers shy Mr. Winant said he hadn't much to say, bit his lip, pawed the ground and jerked out: "I'm glad to be here. There's no place I'd rather be than in England." His harassed sincerity contrasted with the smooth smiles of his predecessor Joe Kennedy, who would rather be almost anywhere than in England.

Riding through the streets of Bristol, the Ambassador got his first glimpse of the bomb wreckage that he will see every day from now on. Then with the Duke of Kent he boarded a special train for London.

In New York before he left, John Winant had said: "I go to England on no special mission," but to the English, at least, his mission had special weight. Part way from Bristol to London the train stopped at a country town. A man in Field Marshal's uniform climbed aboard, shook hands. "I am very glad to welcome you here," said King George VI. As the train started, the nodding, smiling faces of King George, the Duke of Kent and Ambassador Winant could be seen through the windows. Outside London the train stopped again and the party drove away to tea with Queen Elizabeth.

Never before had a British King gone forth to welcome a foreign diplomat, but there was precedent for his action. A few weeks ago Franklin Roosevelt went down the Potomac to greet the King's new Ambassador, Lord Halifax. Obviously the bonds of common purpose were stronger than protocol.

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