December 21, 1970: Elvis Presley Meets President Richard Nixon

As a coda to the sixties and as an introduction to the seventies, the meeting of Elvis Presley and President Richard Nixon was a moment that seems as incongruous as it is resonant. Albeit a more refined and less rebellious Elvis than the young rocker of the 1950s, the Elvis who entered the White House that day still signified a younger and more out-of-control America to the White House occupants; he represented the youthful America with whom the Nixon and Johnson administrations had butted heads over recent years.

Elvis, however, was not perceived as such by the rest of America. Having served in the army for two years in the late 1950s and having made much cinematic bubblegum over the 1960s, Elvis was rejected by the empowered youth of 1970, first for the British wave and then in favor of the newly recharged American rock-and-roll experience symbolized by Jim Morrison and the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, Iron Butterfly, and Jefferson Airplane. By 1970, American youth saw Elvis as mainstream, if not bygone.

The meeting in the Nixon Oval Office that day was a monumental twentieth-century encounter. Jerry Schilling, one of Elvis's closest friends, accompanied him to the White House. Schilling writes:

We were probably the most unusually dressed visitors [the president] had in some time—along with Elvis in his gabardine . . . and I was in a leather jacket. But that didn't seem to faze the president a bit. So, we talked some football with him, handicapping the college season. There was a White House photographer in the room, and we all had our pictures taken with the president. As the photos were snapped, I couldn't stop thinking about just how far Elvis had taken me in all our years and all our travels. . . . Here were two great men, but great men who had found their success to be extremely complicated, and as different as they were, I think there was a mutual understanding between them.

Egil “Bud” Krogh was the facilitator of the meeting and an executive in the Nixon administration. When asked last week to comment on the experience, Krogh told NPG, “It's sometimes hard to believe that I had the good fortune to be the White House staff person who got to follow up on Elvis's request for a meeting with the president on December 21, 1970. Of course, without Dwight Chapin, the president's staff secretary who pushed for the meeting, and without Elvis's own dedication to getting a badge from the narcotics bureau from President Nixon, the meeting would never have happened. But the stars were lined up and the rest was history, as proven by one of the most iconic pictures ever taken. It was a fun day!”

—Warren Perry, Catalog of American Portraits, National Portrait Gallery

Cited:

Schilling, Jerry (with Chuck Crisafulli).  Me and a Guy Named Elvis: My Lifelong Friendship with Elvis Presley; New York: Gotham/Penguin Books, 2006.

The author also wishes to thank Egil "Bud" Krogh for his time last week and for sharing his story of his White House experience with Elvis and President Nixon.