The King’s visit to America comes 50 years after his mother navigated the same diplomatic course. But Trump is no Gerald Ford, who was known as ‘the nicest guy in Washington’ so savvy and a little magic are the order of the day, writes Hugo Vickers F or weeks now, the British embassy in Washington and the royal household in London have been honing and fine-tuning plans for the King’s state visit to America , even at a time when the prospect of the visit happening at all was somewhat in doubt.