IN May 1970 John Dean, who then worked at the U.S. Justice Department, was asked whether he would like to work at the White House, under Richard Nixon. He was non-committal, but a few weeks later, he was urged to catch a flight to Los Angeles, where he would be collected and taken by a Marine helicopter to Nixon’s ‘western White House’ at San Clemente.

“As we headed south towards San Clemente”, Dean wrote in his Watergate memoir, Blind Ambition’, “the pilot pointed out landmarks and towns along the coast: the drydocked Queen Mary, being converted into a hotel but looking from the air like an old and rusting toy ...”

The Clydebank-built luxury liner, launched in September 1934, had a long and distinguished record of service before embarking on her retirement cruise in December 1967, arriving at Long Beach, California, on the 10th of the month.

The journalist Alistair Cooke wrote: “The Queen Mary sailed into exile at Long Beach ... booming her dowager’s baritone while a thousand yachts, cruisers, destroyers, minesweepers, dinghies, barges, putt-putts, sail boats, tugs, went tearing in her wake like a huge little of abandoned puppies.

“The reception, from the moment she loomed out of a sunny haze, was a happy frenzy, as much as relief as of welcome. For in all her 33 years at sea she has never had to suffer the indignities of her this last voyage. For three days and nights, the newspapers of California have alarmed the citizenry with hearsay reports of, to coin a phrase, ‘tumultuous’ happenings at sea. A desperate shortage of drinking water. Rats abounding. Armies of cockroaches in every cabin below the restaurant deck.” In the event, not a single rat nor cockroach could be found on board the ship. Reports of a crew mutiny were also found to be without foundation.

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By the time the liner appeared over the horizon, said Cooke, an armada about ten times the size of the one at Dunkirk “was frisking and tooting and letting off fountains of water against the sky. “The only acts of mutiny in evidence were the dropping of forks, deckchairs, porthole curtains, inscribed ashtrays and other petty souvenirs on to the decks of well-wishers who got close enough as she approached her berth.

“At 11.03am precisely, they hurled three lines towards a tractor and and willing hands on the dockside. A waiting band hoisted its bagpipes and gave off their dreadful sound. Through the ensuing wails and gasps, a man with absolute pitch deciphered ‘The Bluebells of Scotland’

“From Clydeside to Long Beach, the Queen had made it”.