There is no record of the founding fathers ever eating hot dogs, no trace, for example, of mustard on the Declaration of Independence. But the hot dog has played a role in American foreign relations since at least June 1939, when the king and queen of England attended a picnic at President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s estate in Hyde Park, N.Y., while soliciting American support for England in the war about to consume Europe.  The next day, a front-page headline in The New York Times shared the news:  KING TRIES HOT DOG AND ASKS FOR MOREAnd He Drinks Beer With Them  Bob Clark, the head archivist at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, in Hyde Park, agreed on Friday to dig deeper into this seminal event. “Anything we can do to further the diplomacy of the United States,” he said.  He called back to report that: a sample tray of hot dogs was served on a silver tray; the royal guests nevertheless joined everyone else in eating off paper plates; King George VI ate two hot dogs (“with gusto,” the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. later said); and the brand of hot dog was Swift.  A more delicate diplomatic matter concerned Queen Elizabeth. According to “The Roosevelts and the Royals,” a 2004 book by Will Swift, the queen turned to President Roosevelt and asked: “How do you eat it?”  He is said to have answered: “Very simple. Push it into your mouth and keep pushing it until it is all gone.”  But the Queen of England could not conjure her inner Ebbets Field bleacher bum. She is said to have used a knife and fork.  Twenty years later, in 1959, a hot dog again figured in American foreign relations when Nikita Khrushchev, the unpredictable leader of the Soviet Union, toured the United States. At one point he stopped at a packing plant in Des Moines, where he ate his first hot dog — although at least one account says his first bite had to wait until security agents waved a Geiger counter over the dog. A mere cold war formality.  The hot dog, it seems, figures in American diplomacy only when absolutely needed. In 1999, for example, President Bill Clinton gathered at a table with Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel and the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat to eat hot dogs. Kosher, of course.  Now it is needed again — on Independence Day, to help the Obama administration with the delicate matter of Iran. And if things do not go as well as planned, the administration might consider contacting the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, a project of the American Meat Institute and conveniently located in Washington.  Its officials can suggest recipes beyond the traditional dog in a bun. Perhaps the crisis at hand might call for “grilled hot dog and fruit kabobs,” or maybe something more traditional, like “franks and beans.”  The council also has a cheeky list of etiquette tips that could come in handy for foreign heads of state. Among them: use paper napkins, not cloth napkins, when wiping one’s mouth while eating a hot dog; take no more than five bites in consuming a hot dog; and never, ever, use utensils to eat a hot dog on a bun.  One more thing, Your Majesty. Wanna beer?
The United States has developed over the years a disarming way to put its foreign guests at ease: serving hot dogs.