It is the most requested photograph in the history of the National Archives. More people want to see it than the Bill of Rights or the Constitution. In the grainy black-and-white shot, you see a stiff, awkward Richard Nixon shaking hands with a caped, velvet-clad Elvis Presley.
It looks like a fever dream. A collision of two alien planets.
But Richard Nixon and Elvis actually met on December 21, 1970, and the story behind it is way weirder than the meme suggests. Most people think it was just a PR stunt. It wasn't. It was a spontaneous, high-stakes, and deeply bizarre intervention initiated by the King of Rock 'n' Roll himself during a period of intense personal crisis.
The Midnight Flight to D.C.
Elvis didn't plan this weeks in advance. He didn't have a publicist coordinate with the White House Press Secretary. Basically, he just got mad at his family and flew to Washington.
The catalyst was a fight over his spending. His father, Vernon, and his wife, Priscilla, were tired of him dropping thousands on handguns and jewelry. Elvis, being Elvis, reacted by heading to the airport. He hopped on a flight to Washington, checked into the Washington Hotel under the alias "Jon Burrows," and then realized he had a very specific mission. He wanted a badge. Specifically, a badge from the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD).
He believed that with a federal agent badge, he could legally carry his firearms and "legit" drugs anywhere in the world.
On the American Airlines flight over, he scribbled a five-page letter to President Nixon on airplane stationery. It’s a rambling, sincere, and somewhat frantic note. He told Nixon he had studied drug culture and "communist brainwashing" and wanted to help the country. He even checked into a hotel, then drove straight to the White House gates at 6:30 AM to hand-deliver the letter to the guards.
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Getting Past the Gatekeepers
You can't just walk up to the White House and ask for the President. Usually.
But 1970 was a different time, and Nixon’s aides, Egil "Bud" Krogh and Dwight Chapin, saw an opportunity. They thought meeting the biggest star in the world might help Nixon connect with the "silent majority" and maybe even the youth. Nixon was famously uncool. He was bogged down by Vietnam and protests. Elvis was... well, he was the King.
Krogh, who was later a key figure in the Watergate scandal, was the one who pushed it through. He met with Elvis in his office first. Elvis showed up in a purple velvet jumpsuit with a massive gold belt buckle and a literal Colt .45 pistol in a display case as a gift for the President.
The Secret Service, understandably, took the gun.
When the meeting finally happened at 11:45 AM in the Oval Office, it was surreal. Nixon was sitting behind his desk, probably wondering how he ended up in this situation. Elvis walked in and immediately began showing the President his police badges from various cities.
The Conversation Nobody Heard
There were no tapes of this meeting. Nixon hadn't installed the infamous recording system yet. We only have Bud Krogh’s detailed notes and the recollections of the people in the room.
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Elvis did most of the talking. He told Nixon that The Beatles were a "force for anti-Americanism" because they came to the U.S., made money, and then went back to England and talked trash about the country. Nixon, who probably couldn't name a single Beatles song, reportedly nodded and said, "The Beatles had their problems."
It’s kind of hilarious to imagine Nixon trying to talk shop about rock music.
The conversation eventually turned to the badge. Elvis looked Nixon in the eye and said, "Mr. President, can you get me a badge from the Narcotics Bureau?"
Nixon looked at Krogh. Krogh said it could be done. Elvis was so ecstatic he actually hugged the President of the United States. It remains one of the few times a civilian has physically embraced a sitting president in the Oval Office without being tackled by the Secret Service.
Why It Matters Beyond the Meme
The meeting between Richard Nixon and Elvis is often treated as a punchline, but it reveals a lot about the fragility of both men at that moment in time.
- Nixon's Desperation: He was losing the culture war. He desperately wanted to be seen as a leader who understood the "good" kids, and Elvis, despite his hips and his hair, represented the old-school patriotic values Nixon loved.
- Elvis's Isolation: Elvis was trapped in a bubble of "Yes Men." He truly believed that a federal badge would give him the authority to change the world, or at least the authority to keep doing what he was doing without interference.
- The Drug Irony: This is the darkest part. Elvis was asking for a narcotics badge while being heavily dependent on prescription pills. He died seven years later with a cocktail of drugs in his system. Nixon, meanwhile, was about to launch the War on Drugs, a policy that would define American policing for decades.
The Secret remained for Years
Believe it or not, this meeting didn't leak to the press for over a year. Nixon didn't even use the photos for his 1972 re-election campaign. It wasn't until the Washington Post broke the story in 1972 that the public found out about the bizarre summit.
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Even then, people didn't quite believe it. It felt like something out of a satire magazine.
Jerry Schilling, a long-time member of Elvis's "Memphis Mafia" who was actually in the White House that day, has often remarked that Elvis was genuinely nervous. He wasn't there as a superstar; he was there as a concerned citizen who felt the country was sliding into chaos. He saw Nixon as a fellow soldier in the fight for order.
Actionable Insights for History Buffs and Researchers
If you want to dig deeper into the actual documentation of this event, you don't have to rely on rumors. The National Archives has digitized the entire file.
1. Review the Original Letter: Search the National Archives for "Elvis Presley letter to Richard Nixon." Reading it in his own handwriting gives you a much better sense of his state of mind than any transcript ever could.
2. Visit the Nixon Library: If you are in Yorba Linda, California, the Nixon Presidential Library has an entire exhibit dedicated to this 30-minute meeting. They have the clothes Elvis wore—the purple velvet is even louder in person.
3. Read "The Day Elvis Met Nixon" by Egil Krogh: This is the definitive first-hand account. Krogh doesn't sugarcoat the absurdity of the situation. It provides a nuanced look at how the White House staff managed the egos of two of the most famous men on Earth.
4. Contextualize the Year: To truly understand why this happened, look at the headlines from December 1970. The Vietnam War was raging, the Kent State shootings were fresh in everyone's minds, and the "Generation Gap" was a literal chasm. This meeting was a desperate, weird attempt to bridge that gap.
The photo of Richard Nixon and Elvis survives because it represents the ultimate "What If" of American history. It’s the moment the 1950s met the 1970s in a room where neither of them quite belonged. It reminds us that history isn't just made of policy and legislation; sometimes, it's made of velvet suits, secret badges, and a midnight flight fueled by a family argument.