Graceland exhibit marks 50th anniversary of Elvis meeting Nixon
In the long history of the U.S. presidency, you'd be hard pressed to name anyone who showed up unannounced at the gates of the White House and got a meeting with the Commander in Chief. But Elvis wasn't just anyone.
Fifty years ago — on Dec. 21, 1970 — a rather impromptu meeting was held between The King of Rock and Roll, Elvis A. Presley, and the President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon.
Over the last half century, the confab has become the stuff of legend, a strange summit of two of the 20th century's most discussed, if seemingly disparate, figures. A photograph capturing the iconic handshake between Presley and Nixon remains one of the most requested images in the history of the National Archives. And the events of that day have spawned various books and even a feature film, 2016's “Elvis & Nixon.”
Elvis Presley's Graceland marked the anniversary with the opening of a new pop-up exhibit, “Dear Mr. President… Elvis and Nixon.” Among the artifacts displayed are the outfit Elvis wore to the Oval Office, the presidential cufflinks, and the federal narcotics badge Nixon presented to him.
While it's not quite on par with the Yalta Conference or the Vienna Summit in terms of its import, the meeting between Elvis and Nixon remains a singular, and singularly fascinating, episode in presidential history and American culture.
Elvis' arrival at the White House
Earlier this year, Nixon administration staffer Egil “Bud” Krogh — the man who largely helped facilitate the meeting — died at the age of 80. In a 2012 interview with The Commercial Appeal, Krogh reflected on how unlikely it was that Presley could show up at the White House with no advanced warning and manage to secure a face-to-face meeting with the most powerful man in the world.
“I had never heard of that happening before, and I have never heard of it since,” noted Krogh. “It was an absolutely unique moment, but Elvis was a unique person."
For Krogh — who wrote a short book of the Elvis/nixon meeting in 1994, and often appeared at Elvis panels discussing the experience — the whole thing seemed, at first, like a big gag.
As Krogh recalled, Presley arrived wearing a purple jumpsuit, a white shirt open to the navel with a big gold chain and thick-rimmed sunglasses. His very presence was unusual, especially given that this was a different, less celebrityheavy era at the White House.
Presley had flown to D.C. with his friends/bodyguards Jerry Schilling and Sonny West and arrived at the White House gates in the early morning, wanting to hand-deliver a letter he'd written to President Nixon and the gift of a framed World War Ii-era Colt pistol.
In the letter, Presley expressed his support for Nixon and offered to help the administration, intimating that he could serve as a bridge to the youth counterculture.
Once the initial surprise at Presley's request wore off, the wheels were set in motion to seek approval for a meeting with Nixon.
'Dear Mr. President... '
The whole episode had started a couple days earlier when Elvis left Memphis rather dramatically.
At the time, Schilling — who'd met Presley in 1954 playing sandlot football and eventually became one of his close friends — was working as a film editor in Hollywood. He was fast asleep when he was awoken by a late-night call from Presley. “He was changing planes in Dallas, and he asked me if I would pick him up at the [Los Angeles] airport” recalled Schilling.
Schilling dutifully picked up Elvis at LAX, and they drove to one of the King's houses in Beverly Hills. As it turned out Presley had blown out of Memphis in a huff, after his wife, Priscilla, and father, Vernon, had harangued him over his Christmas spending.
The next morning, Elvis told him: “I need you to go to Washington with me.'”
Schilling discovered Elvis wanted to go to the nation's capital in order to get a new badge to add to his growing collection of law enforcement IDS.
Strange as it sounds — given he was the most identifiable entertainer in America, if not the world — Schilling said, “Elvis always wanted to be an undercover agent. He felt it was his way to give back to the country."
But Presley may have had other motives. “Elvis was planning on traveling overseas... And he wanted a badge that was honored overseas, where he could carry his guns. He had a couple of serious death threats. So I think that was the motivation.”
Presley had a very specific federal badge in mind. “He had a contact for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, a guy named [deputy director] John Finlator,” said Schilling. “And that was the badge he was going after.”