STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Britain's King Charles and Queen Camilla are finishing four days in the United States, and they seem to have made a good impression 250 years after Americans threw off the power of his ancestor George III. Matthew Barzun is watching all this. He's a former U.S. ambassador to the U.K. Ambassador, good morning.
MATTHEW BARZUN: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: I guess we should note King Charles doesn't have a lot - or any, really - direct power, but he has style. What do you make of the style of this visit?
BARZUN: Well, I - that at every level, I think it was a really big success. And we saw - sometimes it's called soft power. I don't love that term because I think the style and the symbols he did, on both sides, you could see trust, respect and understanding growing. And those things are actually kind of quantifiable 'cause you can say, is there more or less trust in the room before or after?
INSKEEP: I'm thinking about some of the things that they chose to do, the king and queen. They visited the scene of 9/11 in New York - symbolically important. Charles also speaks to Congress, does this state dinner, tells a bunch of jokes. One of the jokes - I want to play it here. He talked about how Charles Dickens might have referred to the American Revolution as a tale of two Georges.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KING CHARLES III: The first president, George Washington, and my five-times great-grandfather, King George III. King George, as you know, never set foot in America. And please rest assured, I am not here as part of some cunning rearguard action.
(LAUGHTER)
INSKEEP: OK. Maybe not, but he also referred to the time the British burned the White House in 1814. Ambassador, did I lose you?
BARZUN: Oh, sorry. No.
INSKEEP: (Laughter).
BARZUN: I thought you were playing some other funny clip before my bit. I was getting in the zone.
INSKEEP: No. It's your chance to tell a joke if you would like. What do you...
BARZUN: But, Steve...
INSKEEP: Yeah. Go on. Go on.
BARZUN: We watch each other's - you know, we stream each other's TV shows. The way - with - you know, humor is a huge part of any relationship, and especially this special one.
INSKEEP: Now, is there substance behind this style? Like, what is he really trying to say to Americans at this moment when we feel divided, when we feel divided from our European allies, when the president of the United States has had specific problems with the U.K.?
BARZUN: I thought it was really good. He - you know, he talked about the past seriously and jokingly. And I think what I read into it is, you know, sometimes we think that we do these hard things together because we're good friends as countries, but the more powerful truth is we're friends because we've done hard things together, including disagreeing. So he sort of gave space for it's OK to disagree. Let's build something together. We have in the past. Let's keep doing that. And I thought it was so powerful to see, as an American, both sides of that chamber rise at the same time to the same point and smile in a way that we don't often see.
INSKEEP: What does the king mean when he talks about harmony, which might make some people roll their eyes at a divisive time?
BARZUN: Exactly. I think it's really important. Harmony sort of has two opposites. It's like what Aristotle called the golden mean. You know, but courage isn't just the opposite of cowardice. It's the opposite of recklessness, too. And I think harmony, its obvious opposite is discord - everyone singing different songs at different times. But harmony is also not unison - everyone singing the same note to the same song at the same time. Harmony is something different and more powerful, and we love it because it's people singing different notes to the same song. And that - and the king loves that word. He uses it. And I think it's a good symbol for us within the States and also between nations.
INSKEEP: Great point to end. Matthew Barzun, ambassador to Great Britain during the second Obama administration. Ambassador, thanks so much.
BARZUN: Thanks, Steve. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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