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Next day the President's trip took him to Aberdeen's Dyce Airport, thence to Balmoral Castle, where Queen Elizabeth II was waiting. It was a drizzly day. The fragrance was on the heather. Fat Black Angus cattle grazed on the rolling hills. Trout-filled streams gurgled cheerfully. U.S. reporters rolling out into the Highlands with the President and Prince Philip, who had met him, were surprised that so few Scotsmen wore kilts. But when they got to the gates of royal Balmoral, the Americans got the full treatment—bagpipes howling fiendishly, Royal Highland Fusiliers crashing to attention:
"Sir, the guard of honor is formed up and ready for your inspection. Sir." A murmur was running through the crowd: "Oooooooh, the Queen." There stood Elizabeth, pregnant and officially out of sight, yet slim and pretty in a baby blue, three-button suit and a small white straw hat. The royal family whisked the President off to the great castle, then to a picnic tea beside shining Loch Muick. When Elizabeth whispered something in the President's ear, he said: "Oh, wonderful. Wonderful."
"I'll Do Anything . . ." Up early next morning, Ike had a leisurely breakfast in his three-room suite on Balmoral's ground floor, met the royal family in a drawing room for a final chat, then with Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip, Prince Charles and Princess Anne, walked out of the castle onto the closely cropped lawn. As a group of reporters and photographers (admitted to the grounds under a pool arrangement) approached, Ike put his hand on Princess Anne's blonde head. Asked he: "Are you going to learn to cook?" The Queen answered for her daughter: "I'll send you some samples."
Laughed the President of the U.S.: "If you don't I'll be bombarding you with letters." Moments later, after fond farewells, the President's car drove slowly from Balmoral's grounds.
His next stop was Chequers, in the green vales of Buckinghamshire just 40 miles northwest of London, country home of British Prime Ministers since 1917. Opened briefly last week to newsmen for the first time, Chequers, as Harold Macmillan said, is "a good place to work and a good place to rest." Dwight Eisenhower and Harold Macmillan did both, at one point using Presidential Physician Howard Snyder as their range pole for golf shots on Chequers' broad lawns, at other times going behind closed doors for serious talks.
As with Konrad Adenauer, it was the President's purpose to convince Harold Macmillan that he was not going to enter into two-way talks with Nikita Khrushchev that would shut U.S. allies off from taking part in whatever decision making might eventually result. "Harold," said the President, "I want you to know that I mean it when I say I have no intention of 'negotiating' with Khrushchev." Macmillan replied that his government understood this quite well and had perfect confidence in Ike.