The autography was almost legible, a spidery doodle on American Airlines headed notepaper, accounting 30,000ft up by a man with a decree drug-addled academician and an amazing request.
‘Dear Mr President,’ it began. ‘I would like to acquaint myself. I am Elvis Presley and adore you and Accept Abundant Respect for your office.’
With all the affecting candour of a adolescent fan autograph to Jim’ll Fix It, the King of Bedrock ’n’ Roll said he basic to advice Richard Nixon save the U.S. from the hippies, the commies and The Beatles.
Elvis Presley's letter led to one of the best camp encounters anytime to booty abode in the White House, an absurd affair of counter-culture figure and Right-wing bogeyman
But he had a baby request. Ability he, perhaps, be fabricated some array of clandestine federal agent? Conceivably with his actual own ID badge?
It was the array of cannonball — bristles pages long, abounding of underlinings, confused basic belletrist and aberrant political opinions — that one ability accept accepted to accept sailed beeline in to a Washington decay cardboard bin.
But instead it led to one of the best camp encounters anytime to booty abode in the White House, an absurd affair of counter-culture figure and Right-wing bogeyman that both abandon understandably did their best to accumulate secret.
Now, Belletrist Of Note, a book on anecdotic accord from the accomplished to be appear in October, has revisited the letter that brought Elvis the Pelvis and Tricky Dicky together.
Thanks to this letter, Presley was saddled for anytime with a acceptability as one of bedrock music’s abundant closet Right-wingers — although, as we will see, the accuracy may be rather different.
Given the alien capacity of the letter, it shouldn’t be a huge abruptness that the affairs of how Presley came to address it in December 1970 were analogously weird.
In his letter the King of Bedrock 'n' Roll said he basic to advice Richard Nixon save the U.S. from the hippies, the communists and The Beatles
Only a few canicule beforehand at his ancestors home in Memphis, Tennessee, Presley, again 35, had been confronted by his father, Vernon, and wife, Priscilla, over his foolishly abundant spending. That year, Elvis has accustomed ancestors and accompany Christmas presents including ten Mercedes cars and 32 handguns.
A bad-tempered Presley headed to the abutting airport and, afterwards a alternation of accidental flights about the U.S., took off for Washington on a booze flight from Los Angeles.
His mission, abutting accompany believed, was to clue bottomward a acute allotment that was missing from his admired accumulating of law administration accouterments — an ID brand from the Washington-based Federal Agency of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. Elvis had talked about it endlessly, and it had become an obsession.
The letter was bristles pages long, abounding of underlinings, confused basic belletrist and aberrant political opinions
As luck would accept it, a Californian senator, George Murphy, was travelling on the aforementioned flight, and aback Presley appear his afire appetite to get the badge, the abettor (surely airless the appetite to asphyxiate in shock on his airline cocktail peanuts) appropriate the bedrock brilliant address to the President alms his casework in the war on adulterous drugs. Elvis, he suggested, could address to adolescent Americans the way a Washington abettor never could.
Presley — never the world’s neatest columnist — got beeline to work.
Despite already accepting a austere botheration with the decree drugs, such as barbiturates, which were afterwards to advice annihilate him, Elvis had been cogent accessible affair about biologic corruption by the young.
He and the President were as one on this, as they were on their eyes of America. He wrote: ‘The biologic culture, the hippie elements, the SDS [the abolitionist organisation Students for a Democratic Society], Atramentous Panthers, etc. do not [underlined] accede me as their adversary or as they alarm it “the establishment”. I alarm it American and I applause it.’
He was willing, he wrote, to do whatever was all-important to serve his country, although he did appetite a baby article in return.
‘I can and will do added acceptable if I were fabricated a Federal Abettor at Large and I will advice out by accomplishing it my way through my communications with bodies of all ages. First and foremost, I am an entertainer, but all I charge is the Federal credentials.’
And in case the President absolved him as aloof a swivel-hipped crooner, Presley insisted he had the all-important qualifications: ‘I accept done an all-embracing abstraction of biologic corruption and Communist apprenticeship techniques and I am appropriate in the average of the accomplished thing, area I can and will do the best good.’
Could Presley — a man who alone bare to attending in his own bath chiffonier to apperceive about ‘drug abuse’ — absolutely be serious?
'I can and will do added acceptable if I were fabricated a Federal Abettor at Large and I will advice out by accomplishing it my way through my communications with bodies of all ages'
- Elvis Presley in his letter to Richard Nixon
He absolutely seemed to be in ardent as he gave Nixon his allowance cardinal at the Washington Hotel, area he said he was registered beneath the name Jon Burrows. ‘I will be actuality for as continued as it takes to get the accreditation of a Federal agent,’ he said hopefully.
He wrote he would applause to allocution the amount over with the President, but that he had one added request: that the accomplished amount be ‘kept actual private’.
And in addition accretion of his credentials, Presley acclaimed he had aloof been nominated as one of ‘America’s Ten Best Outstanding Adolescent Man (sic)’. Nixon, he added in a adulatory addition that charge accept appealed to the chiefly arrogant politician, was — he believed — one of the country’s Top 10 Outstanding Men, too.
When Presley affected bottomward in Washington in the aboriginal hours of December 21, he took his letter beeline annular to the White House himself and handed it in at the gate.
Nixon’s admiral were anon discussing what they should do about it.
The President — affected and anytime one to aroma a rat — was afraid about affair the singer.
When Presley affected bottomward in Washington he took his letter beeline to the White House and handed it in at the gate. He is pictured actuality with Richard Nixon, right, Jerry Schilling, additional from left, and Sonny West
But one of his top aides, Egil ‘Bud’ Krogh (who was afterwards to be confined as one of the Watergate conspirators), was a Presley fan who saw the huge PR abeyant of accepting the superstar on board.
In a announcement to Nixon he acclaimed how ‘two of youth’s folk heroes, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin’, had afresh died of drug-related causes.
If adolescent bodies were activity to challenge bedrock stars, wouldn’t it be bigger if those stars championed ‘self-motivation and discipline’ as the key to success and ‘not bogus actinic euphoria’?
He appropriate Presley ability alike be abiding to almanac an anti-drugs anthology — alleged Get Aerial On Life — at a state-run rehabilitation clinic. Addition adviser agreed: the President bare all the advice he could get in ambrosial to adolescent voters.
Elvis had been hardly put out aback Abstruse Service agents confiscated his present for Nixon - a World War II Colt .45 pistol - but animated up as he showed the President his accumulating of brand badges
Nixon, who fabricated the war on drugs one of his aboriginal presidential advance issues, was persuaded.
The accompanist was appropriately phoned at his auberge and arrive to appear annular anon afterwards apex that aforementioned day.
Although they agreed on a cardinal of key political issues, it wasn’t the easiest of encounters. Krogh recalled how Elvis initially ‘seemed a little awe-struck’ as he pitched up in the West Wing antic a atramentous clover clothing with an open-neck shirt, apart to acknowledge a lion’s arch pendant.
His trousers were attached with a gold-plated, diamond-encrusted belt buckle.
‘You dress affectionate of wild, don’t you, son?’ Nixon told him, according to addendum of the affair taken by White House staff.
‘Mr President, you’ve got your appearance to run and I’ve got mine,’ Presley attempt back.
Elvis had been hardly put out aback Abstruse Service agents confiscated his present for Nixon — a World War II Colt .45 pistol — but animated up as he showed the President his accumulating of brand badges.
During their 30 account together, they chatted about adolescent bodies and assuming in Las Vegas.
Presley again angry to The Beatles. According to Krogh, Elvis ‘indicated that he anticipation The Beatles had been a absolute force for anti-American spirit. He said that The Beatles came to this country, fabricated their money, and again alternate to England, area they answer ‘an anti-American theme’.
The President, said his aide, ‘nodded in agreement’ but additionally seemed to accurate abruptness at Elvis’s aboveboard advance on a adolescent music act.
When Elvis asked the acute catechism — could he accept a narcotics agency badge? — Nixon consulted Krogh and ordered it done. He would be fabricated an Honorary Abettor At Large. Presley was so athrill he put his arm about Nixon and hugged him. He afterwards acclaimed by affairs addition four Mercedes.
'He said all the appropriate words about aggravating to do the appropriate affair and I took him at his word, but I anticipate he acutely basic to get a brand and he knew the alone way he was activity to get it'
- Egil Krogh
Remarkably, the appointment was kept abstruse for a year afterwards the meeting, but the adventure was too acceptable to abide beneath wraps. The Washington Post got wind of it and appear what they knew of the meeting.
But could Presley absolutely accept been in ardent in his declared applause of Nixon and the ethics of conservatism? Bedrock historians absolutely tend to put him top of the account of ‘famous abrupt Right-wingers’.
The Beatles — who hero-worshipped Elvis — were none too admiring by his remarks. Ringo Starr went so far as to affirmation Presley had approved to accept the accumulation ‘banned’ in the U.S.
Looking aback some years later, Egil Krogh assured the King ability accept been accepting them all on afterwards all. ‘Oh man, we were set up! But it was fun,’ he recalled.
‘He said all the appropriate words about aggravating to do the appropriate affair and I took him at his word, but I anticipate he acutely basic to get a brand and he knew the alone way he was activity to get it.’
In the years that followed his aberrant affair in the White House, Special Abettor Elvis took abundant amusement in application his federal abettor ID to banderole bottomward motorists for dispatch or to action advice at accidents.
For the King of Bedrock ’n’ Roll, no amount — alike activity bottomward in history as Tricky Dicky’s stooge — was too aerial to pay for the adored allotment of plastic.
