Ladies swoon but Harry is all business

WASHINGTON: Britain’s Prince Harry broke hearts in Washington’s corridors of power Thursday, showing more interest in land mines than in the excited fans who greeted him at the start of a week-long US visit.
Squeals ricocheted down the halls of the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill as the 28-year-old eligible bachelor inspected a photo exhibit set up by the HALO Trust, a charity favored by his late mother Princess Diana.
Harry, a British army officer in Afghanistan, ignored the group of ladies as he chatted with Senator John McCain, 76, a Vietnam war veteran whose wife Cindy is a HALO board member. There were no public remarks, but Harry was overheard inquiring about the price of mine detectors when he cast an eye over mannequins in cobalt blue outfits combing the polished marble floor for imaginary unexploded ordnance.
Harry is the honorary fundraising patron of HALO, the world’s biggest demining organization, which since its founding 25 years ago has unearthed more than 1.4 million land mines in 9,800 minefields around the world. Diana famously toured minefields cleared by HALO teams in Angola shortly before her death in a Paris car crash in August 1997, a year after her stormy divorce from Prince Charles, heir to the British throne. Harry paid a surprise visit to the White House, where First Lady Michelle Obama offered him afternoon tea in the company of American military veterans.
“He has a very busy schedule, but when he heard about this tea and all of you... he wanted to be here to personally thank you for your service,” she said as Harry kept a polite silence. Harry’s official schedule in Washington also included a dinner at the home of British Ambassador Peter Westmacott — scallops and roasted veal were served — and a solemn wreath-laying yesterday at Arlington National Cemetery.