The ‘partly accidental’ reason one U.S. President and Queen Elizabeth II never met

Over the course of her lifetime, the late Queen Elizabeth met with 13 sitting U.S. presidents, beginning with Harry S. Truman and ending decades later with Joe Biden. The meetings took place both in Washington, D.C., and at home in the United Kingdom. However, there was one sitting president whom the Queen never met: Lyndon B. Johnson.

Johnson, the 36th president of the United States, did not meet the Queen during his time in office from 1963 to 1969, and according to David Charter, Royal Audience: 70 Years, 13 Presidents — One Queen’s Special Relationship with America, the reason their paths didn’t cross “was partly accidental and partly due to the political environment, which was very tense at the time.”

“As it happened, there were two occasions where they really ought to have met, and that was two state funerals,” David tells HELLO!. “Of course, when [John F. Kennedy] was assassinated, as it was a fellow head of state, the Queen would ordinarily have traveled to Washington [D.C.] for the funeral service, but she was pregnant at the time, and her doctors advised her not to go, so she would certainly have met [Lyndon B. Johnson], obviously, if she had gone.”

After JFK was assassinated, his vice president, Johnson, became president. The Queen was pregnant with her fourth child, Prince Edward, at the time of President Kennedy’s funeral in November 1963. While she did not travel to D.C. for the funeral, her husband, Prince Philip, did. 

Less than two years later, there was another missed opportunity for the Queen and President Johnson to meet at Winston Churchill’s funeral in January 1965.

“Similarly, Lyndon Johnson really wanted to come to that big funeral service. It was a massive state funeral in Britain attended by over 100 heads of state of government, but he had just taken part in his inauguration ceremonies and had fallen ill,” David says. “It was a very, very cold day in January when he spent a lot of time outside, apparently, and he got quite sick, and his doctors told him you simply can’t travel to London, where it’s really very cold as well for Winston Churchill’s funeral. So had it not been for those two medical reasons, they would certainly have met.” 

Beyond those missed occasions, David points out that Johnson made few trips to Europe as president. “The longer his presidency went on, the more it was overtaken by events in Vietnam and LBJ didn’t travel much to Europe. He only came twice during his whole presidency, very briefly, actually,” David says. “He really focused his foreign meetings and travel on allies that were helping in Vietnam. Although he received several visits from the British prime minister, he was an Atlanticist and Harold Wilson really wanted to have good relations with Johnson, it wasn’t entirely reciprocated, and he just didn’t have time in his schedule for relations with a government that was refusing to send troops to help out in Vietnam.”

Although Elizabeth did not meet with Johnson during his presidency, her sister did. Princess Margaret was hosted by the president at the White House in November 1965. “It was a really successful night. Lyndon Johnson didn’t have many parties. [His wife] Lady Bird Johnson was overjoyed that they could throw a big party, despite all the doom and gloom in Vietnam,” David says. “A good time was had by all, although not quite as portrayed in The Crown, the TV series, where it does suggest that they had a cheeky kiss, but as far as I’m told by somebody who was actually there, that didn’t take place, although they did get on famously.”

The late Queen’s White House connection

Queen Elizabeth II’s reign spanned 14 U.S. presidencies. Her first official meeting with a sitting president, however, took place before she ascended the throne. In 1951, then-Princess Elizabeth met with the 33rd president of the United States, Truman, in Washington, D.C. During that visit to the American capital, Elizabeth stayed with the first family at Blair House, while the White House was undergoing renovations.

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The Queen paid her final state visit to the United States in May 2007 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown settlement. Then-President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush welcomed the monarch and her husband, Prince Philip, back to the White House.  

Meanwhile, the last president to visit Her Majesty was no. 46, Joe Biden. He and his wife, First Lady Jill Biden, met with the Queen at Windsor Castle over a year before her death.

© Chris Jackson/Getty Images

At her final state banquet for an American president, during Donald Trump’s first official state visit to the UK in 2019, the Queen said: “Visits by American Presidents always remind us of the close and longstanding friendship between the United Kingdom and the United States, and I am so glad that we have another opportunity to demonstrate the immense importance that both our countries attach to our relationship.”

© Dominic Lipinski / POOL / AFP via Getty Images

When it came to her own relationships with U.S. presidents, David believes they were so special not only because the Queen was “such an iconic figure,” but also because she was “great company.” He notes: “One of the things that made the Queen an interesting conversationalist in private was that she had met so many international leaders over the years, and she knew the politics of what was going on in so many of the important nations that she was really a wealth of information for all manner of leaders, if she cared to discuss these things in private with them.”

“Because she was so discreet, as well, private conversations with the Queen remained absolutely private. There was never a leak at all. So you could share quite private views, but also meaningful views that would never be repeated, and she would also have a view, obviously advancing her country’s interests, on all the leading political matters of the day.”