Gifts for the men who have (almost) everything
World leaders could take a tip from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown when pondering what gift to select for the leader of the free world, a man who has everything. . . except perhaps world peace.
Brown is the first European head of state to meet United States President Barack Obama since his January 20 inauguration, and has come prepared for today’s auspicious meeting at the White House.
Barack Obama: the world in his hands
Brown arrived in Washington yesterday bearing gifts specially chosen to compliment a man who has already earned the PM’s respect as the first black president to inhabit the symbolic building built by his enslaved forefathers.
The first present from Brown’s sack of goodies was a first edition of Martin Gilbert’s seven-volume biography of Winston Churchill, whose World War II partnership with Franklin Roosevelt epitomized the Anglo-American alliance, as reported by Reuters correspondents.
The second was a framed commissioning paper for HMS Resolute, a Royal Navy ship that became icebound in the Arctic in the early 1850s while searching in vain for British explorer John Franklin’s lost expedition that had been seeking a Northwest Passage to Asia.
A US whaler found Resolute three years later and it was freed from the ice and returned as a peace gesture to Queen Victoria in 1856. In 1880, the British government, by way of thanks, presented President Rutherford B. Hayes with a desk made from timbers of the ship, which has since been used in the Oval Office by most presidents, including Obama. JFK’s son was pictured hiding under the desk while his father worked. A replica was featured in the Hollywood thriller National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets, in which a secret compartment in the desk contained pieces of a clue.
Reuters reports that at today’s White House talks, Brown also plans to give Obama a pen holder carved from the timber of HMS Gannet, a sister ship of the Resolute that also served for a time on anti-slavery missions off Africa.
“The hope, it seems, is Obama will be reminded of America’s longstanding ties to Britain, which lost its 13 colonies after they rebelled against the Crown in 1776 but which later forged an alliance that spanned two world wars in the 20th century,” said Reuters’ Front Row Washington blog.
Any gift from Obama to Brown will be modest, with the economy at the top of their agenda. The president has shown that despite the “special relationship” between Britain and the US, he puts his personal principles first.
Gordon Brown: so far empty handed
Within days of his taking up residence in the White House, it was announced that a bust of former British prime minister Winston Churchill had been removed from the Oval Office and handed back.
The bronze had been loaned to Obama’s predecessor George W. Bush from the British government’s art collection following the September 11 attacks, but Obama chose to replace it with a bust of his predecessor Abraham Lincoln. The Daily Telegraph suggested that Churchill’s likeness could have represented Britain’s suppression of Kenya’s Mau Mau rebellion and the alleged torture of dissidents including the president’s grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama.
A clue to Obama’s style of diplomacy might be found in the title of John Williams’ classical music theme that accompanied his inauguration: Air And Simple Gifts. If not a replacement pen holder, a plastic wallet for Brown’s economy Blackberry might be just as welcome.
UPDATE: More Obama diplomacy. Joint press conference with Brown is replaced. “Special relationship” between the UK and US is now a “partnership”. Obama later presents the PM with a DVD collection of great American movies!
Tags: Barack Obama, gifts, Gordon Brown
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