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A redesign of the Oval Office brought new busts to the place: Latino civil rights leader Cesar Chavez, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, Rosa Parks and Eleanor Roosevelt.
At another time, the same decision caused an uproar. American conservatives and even some British politicians have declared it a major snub.
Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, said it was because President Barack Obama “probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.”
Sen. Ted Cruz, of R-Texas, said the decorating decision “foreshadowed everything to come for the next six years.”
Boris Johnson, who was then Mayor of London and is now Prime Minister, went further. He blamed the exchange on “the partly Kenyan president’s ancestral aversion to the British Empire”.
The attacks were blatantly racist and also deceptive. Obama officials were furious.
There are actually two identical Churchill busts, both by British Modernist sculptor Sir Jacob Epstein. One has been in the White House collection since the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson. Another was loaned by Prime Minister Tony Blair to the George W. Bush White House while the other was being restored.
Blair’s was on display in the Oval Office until Bush left. It was returned to the British government.
Under Obama, the version owned by the White House was not displayed in the Oval Office; instead, Obama kept him outside the Treaty Room in the Residence, where he walked past when he wanted to watch basketball on weekends and evenings. He chose to put it there for him to see in his personal time. He had a king’s bust in the study.
He addressed the situation during his last year in office.
“Love the guy,” he said on a visit to London, later adding, “There are only so many tables where you can put busts. Otherwise it starts to sound like a little crowded. “
When Trump arrived he sent Churchill back to the Oval Office, much to the (proclaimed) delight of the British. Then-Prime Minister Theresa May, who was Trump’s first foreign visit to the Oval Office, came armed with the British version of the bust to present it to Trump. Officials said the Trump team requested it.
“We were very happy that you agreed to take it back,” May told him.
Now the bust is gone again. But Johnson, who is now prime minister and hopes to strengthen ties with the new administration, doesn’t seem to have the same reaction.
“The Oval Office is the president’s private office, and it’s up to the president to decorate it however he sees fit,” a Downing Street spokesperson said Thursday. “We have no doubts about the importance President Biden places on UK-US relations, and the Prime Minister looks forward to having this close relationship with him.”
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