Royal Couple Greeted Warmly
It wasn't the frenzy that welcomed Prince Charles 20 years ago on a U.S. tour that saw his radiant wife, the late Princess Diana, but the Prince and his current wife, Camilla, received an enthusiastic reception at the beginning of their U.S. tour.
Several hundred onlookers who gathered at ground zero to see the royal couple were supportive.
"He really does care about people, but a lot of people think, 'Oh, he's a prince, what does he know about us, what does he care?"' said Nancy Hodl, a 59-year-old retired secretary from New Jersey.
Under unseasonably balmy November sunshine, small but enthusiastic crowds greeted the couple as they began their weeklong U.S. trip Tuesday by paying tribute to victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.
CBS News correspondent Bianca Solorzano visiting the site was the first step on a trip designed to strengthen a
"Both our nations have been united by grief and strengthened by the support we have given each other," the prince said at a reception for supporters of a memorial garden for the 67 Britons who died when the hijacked jets slammed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
Charles later attended a roundtable at the United Nations and appealed to business leaders to help millions of young people find jobs.
He and Camilla later attended a celebrity-studded reception at the Museum of Modern Art.
The couple began their U.S. tour by traveling by limousine from their chartered jet to ground zero, the vast site where the World Trade Center once stood. They viewed the site and visited a room full of mementos left by families of the victims.
The prince said he and his wife were "profoundly moved by what we saw — not just the scale of the outrage but the deeply distressing individual stories of heroism and of loss."
At nearby Hanover Square, the couple unveiled the cornerstone to the memorial garden. They walked around to greet some of the several hundred well-wishers and onlookers who gathered behind barricades at the square, named for King George I of Hanover. The garden, due to be completed next summer, is designed as a green corner of Britain in Manhattan, with topiary trees, boxwood hedges and a sculpture by artist Anish Kapoor.
Alexandra Clarke, a Briton whose daughter Suria died on Sept. 11, said the prince was "quietly and personally very kind" to families of the victims.
"They're both very relaxed people," said Clarke, who met the couple at a private reception for British victims' relatives. "They were really genuinely interested in hearing the stories that people had to tell."
The duchess seemed at ease, smiling broadly as she accepted a bouquet of flowers from a 5-year-old girl. Camilla, who has been trying to project a more glamorous image, wore a dark rose Italian wool crepe jacket and dress with velvet chiffon trim by designer Roy Allen.
Later, at the museum reception, the 58-year-old duchess had the chance to showcase another of the 40 outfits she brought for the trip, which will also include meetings with hurricane victims in New Orleans, homeless people in San Francisco and organic farmers in Marin County, California.
Camilla, wearing a navy blue velvet cocktail dress with a cream chiffon collar by British designer Anthony Price, and Charles mingled with the invited British and American celebrities.
Guests attending the reception included Yoko Ono, Sting, TV newswomen Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters, real estate tycoon Donald Trump, former tennis star John McEnroe, actors Matthew Modine and Joan Collins, and New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.
Camilla did not join Charles in the afternoon when he headed to the United Nations, where he was greeted by Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The 56-year-old prince recalled that the last time they met was in 1997, soon after Annan became the U.N. chief, and Charles joked "how like the secretary-general we all become grayer and grayer as time goes by."
On a more serious note, he appealed to about 200 businessmen to take on young people and serve as mentors to help them find employment, noting that in the Middle East alone, 100 million jobs will have to be created in the next 20 years just for new entrants to the job market.
"In my view, of the great long-term challenges today, apart from the most urgent need to tackle climate change, is creating meaningful employment for young people," Charles said.
The U.S. tour is also part of a careful palace plan to win acceptance for the duchess, long reviled in the British press — and among Diana-philes — as the woman who broke up the royal romance. "There were three of us in that marriage," Diana told a television reporter in 1995.
Charles and Diana divorced in 1996; Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris the following year.
British media had predicted scant interest from Americans in the first joint trip to the United States by Charles and his wife, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, since they tied the knot in April. CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips spoke with friends and admirers from back home have been watching the trip, hoping the couple can win America over.
Papers in London took note of a USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll, which found 59 percent of Americans surveyed saying they were "not at all interested" in the visit, 22 percent were "not too interested," 13 percent were "somewhat interested" and 6 percent were "very interested."
Some bystanders in New York felt differently.
"I've been following this man since I was in grade school in Minnesota. I wrote papers about him," Thomas Rex Campbell, a writer who grew up in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, said of Prince Charles. "I very much admire him for his breadth of vision on the world. He's interested in everything from farming to classical architecture. He's the best-educated Prince of Wales ever."
On Wednesday, the royal couple were to travel to Washington, where they will have an intimate lunch and a lavish dinner with President Bush and his wife, Laura, at the White House.
Some press reports have speculated the prince will use his meeting with Mr. Bush to raise the issue of climate change, which he recently called "terrifying."
Asked if the president wanted to discuss climate change, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Mr. Bush "looks forward to the visit. He's glad to talk about whatever issues Prince Charles may want to bring up."