Remarks of Welcome to Queen Juliana of the Netherlands at the Washington National Airport
Your Majesty, and Your Royal Highness:
It is a very great pleasure indeed for me, as the head of the Government of the United States, to welcome you to this country.
I hope you will have a most pleasant visit, and that you will go away friendlier than when you came, if that is possible. I want to say to you that Mrs. Truman and I are highly appreciative of the cordiality with which you treated our daughter when she was in your great country, and I hope that we, to some extent, will be able to return that hospitality.
My daughter is out on a concert tour, because as you know, her plans were changed and she has to appear when she agrees to. I am very sorry that she is not here, but I am not half so sorry as she is.
I hope you will have a grand time while you are here.
Note: The President spoke at 4:05 p.m. Queen Juliana and her husband, Prince Bernhard, had arrived in Washington to begin an extended tour of the United States and Canada. The Queen responded as follows:
"Mr. President:
"I thank you very much for your kind words, and your warm welcome.
"We have been looking forward very much to our coming here. We are not strangers meeting here-we have been here a great deal during the war.
"I want to bring you greetings from the people of the Netherlands to the American people, the main mission of our coming here. And furthermore, I just want to thank you for your very warm welcome.
"I am sorry Margaret won't be here. We had such a nice visit with her, but she is not her own boss.
"Thank you very much for your welcome."
Harry S Truman, Remarks of Welcome to Queen Juliana of the Netherlands at the Washington National Airport Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/231589
