Funny Historical Photos Elvis and Nixon Einstein With Tongue Out
The remarkable encounter between Elvis Presley and President Nixon has inspired a new film. But what is the stranger-than-fiction story behind the image?
Elvis's handwritten letter to the president offered "any service I can to help the country out" (Credit: The National Archives and Records Administration)
Photos and other artefacts from the meeting are available to view in a National Archives exhibition online (Credit: The National Archives and Records Administration)
Krogh, who documented the meeting and later wrote a book on the encounter, described in his notes how Elvis showed off his badges to the president before stating "that he thought the Beatles had been a real force for anti-American spirit". The president gave his opinion that "those who use drugs are also at the vanguard of anti-American protest".
Then Elvis explained the real reason for his visit: his desire for a badge from the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. The singer was a collector of police badges and believed this one would give him the special powers and freedom of a federal agent. Nixon granted his wish for a badge, and the meeting concluded with, as Krogh described it, "a surprising, spontaneous gesture", as Elvis put his arm around the president and hugged him.
Opposites attract
Today the photos and other artefacts from the meeting are available to view in a National Archives exhibition online. But what is it about this one image that sparked such interest and holds such an enduring appeal?
"The reason the photo resonates with the public is due in part to the reputation of Richard Nixon as someone unaware of pop culture icons of this time," explains Gregory Cumming, Resource Archivist and Staff Historian at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. "It's the incongruity that people find so fascinating," adds art historian Kelly Grovier, "the symbol of all things cool meeting the symbol of all things cold and calculating."
But despite their differences, an affinity was struck between the two men that continued after that day. Elvis' friend and long-term aide Jerry Schilling, who accompanied him to the Oval Office, saw a bond between the pair, describing the encounter as "two people who had been at the top of their careers… they identified with being lonely at the top… and they hit it off against all odds."
A satirical film that stars Michael Shannon as Elvis and Kevin Spacey as Nixon is released in April (Credit: Amazon Studios)
As US cultural icons, both men have been repeatedly immortalised, spoofed and mimicked on TV and in film, from Oliver Stone's Nixon to X-Men and The Simpsons. It's clear from the trailer for the upcoming film, Elvis & Nixon, that the film-makers are playing for laughs – honing in on the incongruity and implausibility of the encounter.
"Nothing else like this photograph exists. Nowhere else will you find a photo of the President of the United States and the King of Rock 'n' Roll," says Gregory Cumming. "Its treasure lies in its uniqueness."
Kelly Grovier is surprised that the famous photo's clash of styles and personalities should have caused such a fuss. "[It] beckons from an earlier cultural consciousness when celebrity and politics weren't nearly so intermingled" he explains. So what would make for an equally striking photo today?
"Far more shocking to imagine than a photo of Elvis and Nixon in the White House is a picture of Donald Trump by himself in the Oval Office," Grovier suggests. "Trump as president is like the unimaginable fusion of the antitheses that the Elvis/Nixon photo implies: the showman turned president and vice versa."
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Source: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20160329-when-elvis-met-nixon-the-bizarre-story-behind-this-photo
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