The Palace Guard

As Britain's Prime Minister Harold Wilson arrived at the south portico of the White House last week, he may have had a fleeting fancy that he had come to a banana republic or a Balkan kingdom. On hand to greet him were a squad of White House guards caparisoned in Graustarkian dress uniforms festooned with gold braid and nipped at the waist with black leather gunbelts. The black vinyl hats trimmed in gold suggested, by turns, a Ruritanian palace guard, a Belgian customs inspector, and Prince Danilo in The Merry Widow.

The President was impressed during his European tour last year by the shakos and braids of the ceremonial guards he encountered. Nixon--who himself wears, somber grays and blues--had his staff order some kitschily elaborate threads for 150 of his White House police from a Washington military tailor. What did the President think of the uniform? "He likes it," reported Press Secretary Ron Ziegler. Some guests may have wondered whether the White House would soon revert to its old name. For a time, in the 19th century, the executive mansion was known as the President's Palace.

The Nixonian court jester may well be Red Skelton. Last week, in the first of a series of "Evenings at the White House," Skelton gave the VIP-studded audience the kind of entertainment that has made him a sort of cultural hero to Nixon's generation. After all the belly laughs were over ("I played golf today and shot a 72; tomorrow I'm going to play the second hole"), Skelton displayed an old trouper's feel for his audience by dramatically reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag amid a reverential hush.

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