If you’re not conversant with the lore of Elvis Presley, first, my deepest sympathies. Second, you may not realize he was always fascinated with law enforcement. During his life, he was made an honorary officer by many police departments, and an absolutely enormous collection of his badges and guns and patches is on display at Graceland. But perhaps the most notable of these is the badge he received after showing up at the White House to meet Nixon in late December, 1970.
Elvis wrote a six-page letter to Nixon and made a spur-of-the-moment visit to the White House in pursuit of a post as a Federal Agent-at-Large, a non-existent position, but one from which he thought he could be influential. Despite the King’s later medical history, this situation wasn’t really a case of the fox wanting to be in charge of the henhouse, you cynics. It was most likely the result of an Elvis-in-crisis being earnestly convinced by some groovy young folks in California that he bore some responsibility for the contemporary drug culture. He wanted to be a representative for uprightness instead. To be that probably didn’t require a badge, but he wanted one anyway. He liked ’em. The E.P. of T.C.B. first hit up a Senator and then the BNDD’s Director before leapfrogging them to ask the president himself, delivering a handwritten entreaty to the White House steps at 6:30am. Not strange at all.
That Presley actually got the badge from the president reflects Nixon’s attempt at political outreach to younger Americans, a group that didn’t favor him much. The odd juxtaposition of the two different men and their goals was so compelling that in 1997 Showtime aired Elvis Meets Nixon, a mockumentary. Below is just a teaser clip, but the entire movie’s available online as well. So that happened, and thank you very much.
Image and more background at PI Mall.
