A redesign of the Oval Office brought new busts: Latin American civil rights leader Cesar Chavez, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, Rosa Parks and Eleanor Roosevelt.
In another era, the same decision caused protests. American conservatives and even some British politicians have declared it a major affront.
Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, said it was because President Barack Obama “probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who were chasing his grandfather”.
Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said the decoration decision “foreshadowed everything that was to come in the next six years”.
Boris Johnson, then Mayor of London and now Prime Minister, went further. He blamed “the Kenyan president’s ancestral antipathy in part for the British empire”.
The attacks were openly racist and also deceptive. Obama officials were furious.
In fact, there are 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 when 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 White House-owned version was not shown in the Oval Office; instead, Obama kept him outside the Treaty Room at the Residence, where he passed when he wanted to watch basketball on weekends and at night. He chose to put it there so that he could see it during his personal time. He had a bust of King in the office.
He addressed the situation during his last year in office.
“I love the guy,” he said during a visit to London, adding later: “There are so many tables where you can put busts. Otherwise, it starts to look a little messy.”
When Trump arrived, he returned Churchill to the Oval Office, much to the (proclaimed) pleasure of the British. Then Prime Minister Theresa May, who was Trump’s first foreign visitor to the Oval Office, came armed with the British version of the bust to introduce Trump. Officials said the Trump team had requested it.
“We are very pleased that you took it back,” said May.
Now, the bust is gone again. But Johnson, who is now prime minister and hopes to cement strong ties to the new government, does not appear to have the same reaction.
“The Oval Office is the president’s private office, and it’s up to the president to decorate it as he pleases,” a Downing Street spokesman said on Thursday. “We have no doubt about the importance that President Biden attaches to the relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States, and the Prime Minister hopes to have that close relationship with him.”