What lessons might be unearthed from that anecdote for a newish US President or for our leaders? The first is Polonius' advice to Hamlet: "to thine own self be true". Do not fake emotions nor feign interest. Compare Whitlam's with Richard Nixon's vapid comment about China's Great Wall: "this is indeed a great wall". The second lesson might be not to be bluffed or fussed by anything. Niagara's torrent may well hit the water with 2509 tons of force, but Whitlam considered himself a political force of nature on a comparable scale.

As for Joe Biden, outings even as close as Niagara remain circumscribed by Covid. Conducting foreign relations and exchanges largely from his desk, this president has few opportunities to practise his natural style. He cannot rely on establishing personal relations of trust and confidence. He cannot persuade foreign leaders by his intimacy, informality or eloquence. He cannot bang on with customary verbosity. He cannot extend the diplomatic repertoire by including his family, let alone his personal or national history, in events. Even Lyndon Johnson, a masterful demon at telephone intimidation, would have raged at being unable to hug, squeeze or manhandle his interlocutors.

As the whimsical film The American President could remind him, Biden should remember that the Oval Office comprises "the biggest home-court advantage in the world". Biden sought that office first 33 years ago, as a fitter, younger man in a simpler, easier world. Now he has learned that sitting at your desk does not preclude your establishing a pecking order, whether by not bothering to call an outgoing Israeli Prime Minister (Netanyahu), phoning his successor immediately, or not bothering with Kim Jong-un at all.

For the time being all Biden's studied Cool Hand Luke mannerisms (the sunglasses, jauntiness and neon smile) are necessarily consigned to the closet. None of his overseas networks, cultivated in frequent trips as senator and vice president - off-Broadway tryouts, if you like - can be refreshed or rejuvenated.

That might, however, be salutary for a president disposed to exaggerate the personal touch in solving intractable issues.

At home Biden can immediately tap every member of his diverse foreign policy team - extending to a CIA director, Bill Burns, with remarkable diplomatic credentials. He can better control the flow, in, for instance, granting Angela Merkel a gracious farewell or stopping Netanyahu from appealing over his head to Congress and the Israel lobby.

Looking back for confirmation of that view, two of the United States' most conspicuous foreign policy successes were orchestrated and staged at home, at Camp David for an armistice between Israel and Egypt, at Dayton for the Bosnian war. Farther back again, the United States set the foundations for the post-war international order two hours' flight from the White House, at Bretton Woods.

Besides, Biden knows (as Trump sensed, though Obama did not) that the American people want their domestic concerns to be heard and heeded before their president focuses overseas.

Insistent demands at home - for Covid vaccination, economic stimulus, infrastructure repair, voting rights and anti-trust action - cannot be facilitated by either co-operation or competition with the outside world. George W. Bush lost more respect where it mattered overseas for his hapless fumbling after Hurricane Katrina than for foreign policy misadventures (Iraq always excepted).

Biden seems to calibrate his foreign policy in response not only to Trump's shameless shambles but also to the sometimes pointlessly passive posturing in which Obama indulged. Assembling a montage of Trump's most blatant failures is a simple task. That collage would include: being played by Putin (Oslo); brandishing a silly sword with Saudi royals (Riyadh); being stood up by Kim (Hanoi); failing to honour war dead (France); or sulkily refusing to permit issue of a G7 communique (Ottawa). Obama's record on China, Syria, Iran, Cuba and Afghanistan was less conspicuously disastrous, but certainly not a model to emulate.

Turning to his allies in the G7 and NATO, Biden seemed graciously to absorb their idiosyncrasies and pretentions. As with in-laws, he must make the best of them. British and French leaders continue to pretend to an unwarranted, anachronistic global standing. Italians farcically insist that they have earned a place at the top table, accompanied by not one but two representatives of the lumbering Brussels bureaucracy. Canada, enjoying the softest possible national security choices, has not yet found any means to be taken seriously. More serious challenges with China are yet to be addressed.

Biden managed his one trip in a calmly self-contained manner, not frenetically grandstanding (unlike Nixon in Egypt) nor being abjectly out-manoeuvred (Kennedy in Vienna). Perhaps Biden's modest realism reflects consideration of the two useful foreign policy maxims, one from an inveterately bellicose Nobel Peace Prize laureate, the other from a jowly, pudgy schemer.

Teddy Roosevelt - with a room named in his honour outside Biden's office - could teach the President to "speak softly but carry a big stick". Lord Palmerston might remind Biden that nations do not have eternal allies nor perpetual enemies, only permanent interests.

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