Zito!

The red-white-and-blue-tipped propellers stopped spinning, the door of the presidential plane Columbine opened, and a pretty young woman stepped forward. A moment later her husband, who had piloted the plane for 100 miles on the trip from New York to Washington, joined her. Then, arm in arm, the King and Queen of Greece walked down the ramp toward Secretary of State Dulles.

Almost at once Queen Frederika displayed the relaxed charm which has endeared her to the people of Greece. In the open Cadillac, on the way into Washington, she helped Secretary Dulles into his overcoat. When someone shouted "Zito!" (Greek for long live), Frederika's pretty face lighted up with a smile. During the welcoming ceremonies in front of the District Building, the Queen gravely returned the impudent wink of a reporter. A few minutes later, under the White House porte-cochere, the President and Mrs. Eisenhower hurried down the steps to greet their old friends. "May you find as much pleasure in our house as we did in yours," said Ike, gripping King Paul's hand.

"What a Doll!" That evening Frederika and Paul dined royally on gold service at a glittering State dinner. Afterwards the President presented the Legion of Merit to the King, and Paul responded with a graceful speech. "Greece is the first democratic country which completely defeated full-scale aggression by militant Communists," he said. "We shall never forget that America came to our aid so generously in that hour of desperate crisis."

After a night as the President's house guests, the royal couple moved across the street to Blair House and began a nonstop, two-day official tour. At Mount Vernon, in a pouring rain, the slicker-clad King placed a wreath on the tomb of George Washington. At the next wreath-laying ceremony in Arlington Cemetery, the Queen tweaked the nose of a small boy who was standing nearby. "What a doll!" sighed a girl under an umbrella. "That's a lot of king," murmured a man, as the 6-ft. 4-in. Paul passed by. At lunch with Washington correspondents, the Queen smilingly accepted two items which were not on the menu, a hamburger and a hot dog, but turned pale when she was offered a foaming chocolate soda. "A soda should be eaten in private," she protested. The stories of her craving for sodas, she explained later, were grossly exaggerated.

That evening, still showing no signs of fatigue, the royal couple shook 2,000 hands at the Greek ambassador's reception, then hurried on to Secretary Dulles' official dinner. Queen Frederika, wearing a cream satin gown, a diamond coronet and the Greek army's Cross of Bravery, bravely tackled the lobster thermidor, roast pheasant, Smithfield ham mousse, marron bombe on nests of spun sugar and three wines. Next morning Their Majesties were up early for a whirlwind tour of the Naval Academy at Annapolis.

Like an Angel. That night, at the Greek Embassy, they entertained the Eisenhowers at a dinner for 50, next morning continued resolutely to Philadelphia and New York. This week, in the space of 48 hours, they attended Greek Orthodox services at Manhattan's Hellenic Cathedral, lunched with Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt at Hyde Park, rode up Broadway in a ticker-tape storm, lunched at the Waldorf with Mayor Impellitteri and 1,500 other New Yorkers, accepted an honorary degree (King Paul can add Doctor of Humane Letters to his many titles) from Columbia University, dined with U.N. officials twice and attended two receptions. Ahead of them loomed a formidable five-week schedule that will take them to the far corners of the nation in the longest, most thorough U.S. tour ever made by reigning monarchs. Behind them, King Paul and his buoyant Queen left some thoroughly tired Americans. "I could sleep for a week," sighed Mrs. Victoria Gainey, the housekeeper at Blair House. "But you must say so," replied Queen Frederika's personal maid: "She looked like an angel, is it not so?"

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