Tongue firmly in cheek, The Economist of London chose last week to publish a Declaration of Dependence, suggesting that Britain might be better off reunited with "our American Brethren " as the 51st state. Among the magazine's grievances against the present government: "They have repeatedly and cruelly increased the Price of stamps, thereby effectively levying a Stamp Tax; they have reduced the Value of the Pound to just about 1.776 Dollars, which is an excessively Bicentennial Figure." The Declaration acknowledged past differences ("What if we did burn down Washington in 1814? Jimmy Carter, at least, ought to approve "), but in support of its plea for reunification pledged "our Lives, what is left of our Fortunes and what is left of our sacred Honour." The Economist's Declaration was a new wrinkle on an old theme: in George Bernard Shaw's 1929 political comedy, The Apple Cart, a British monarch rejects a U.S. plea for reunification out of fear that England would become, in effect, just another American state.
Nothing, of course, could have been further from the mind of Queen Elizabeth II last week, when she paid the most glittering courtesy call of the U.S. Bicentennial—a five-day visit to the former colonies of her great-great-great-great-grandfather, George III. Still, she noted, while the events of 1776 may have severed constitutional ties between the two countries, the rupture "did not for long break our friendship." She went so far as to thank the American founding fathers for "a very valuable lesson." Said the Queen: "We learned to respect the right of others to govern themselves in their own way."
Making her second state visit to the U.S., the Queen came ashore with her husband, Prince Philip, and an entourage of more than 50 from the 412-ft. royal yacht Britannia at Penn's Landing in Philadelphia. In Independence Hall she presented Britain's Bicentennial gift to the U.S.: a six-ton bell cast in London's Whitechapel Foundry. which made the original Liberty Bell in 1752. Philadelphia's rough-hewn Mayor Frank Rizzo was nearly overcome by it all. "A little boy from South Philadelphia having lunch and dinner with the Queen," he gushed. "Only in America can that happen."
The most elaborate U.S. function for the Queen was a state dinner in the White House Rose Garden, bordered with Queen Elizabeth roses. Under a gleaming white canopy and with TV cameras recording the event (see SHOW BUSINESS & TV), 224 guests gathered in a dazzle of diamonds and a cloud of pastel-tinted chiffon and crepe. Among them were Lady Bird Johnson, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Telly Savalas (star of Kojak, the Queen's favorite TV program), Olympic Skater Dorothy Hamill and White House Economic Adviser Alan Greenspan, who escorted TV's Barbara Walters.