When Great Minds Collide

40 years ago today, one of history's great meetings took place, Elvis met Richard Nixon. Elvis was worried about, "The hippie drug culture," and the most sinister of anti-American forces; The Beatles. Elvis wanted the President to appoint him, "Federal Agent at Large," and to be given a Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs badge. Elvis would then infiltrate "The Hippie Drug Culture," the way only a man such as Elvis could, from a stage in Vegas while wearing a polyester jumpsuit. To win the President's favor he presented Nixon with a Colt .45, exactly how this was to win the President's favor has been lost to history. Also unknown is exactly why anyone would be allowed to carry a gun into the Oval Office of the White House for a private meeting with the President of the United States. Nixon for his part, saw meeting Elvis as a way to get in good with kids of America, as we all know Elvis was a big thing with the kids in 1970. Give ol' Tricky Dick credit though, he took the gun, gave Elvis his badge, the appointment as requested and posed for some of the greatest photos ever.

One could argue that this meeting was a harbinger of doom, a meeting of two men, who really could not have known that they had began to circle the toilet as it where, indeed their best days were behind them. Sure Nixon won re-election, and went to China and Elvis would increase in size if nothing else, becoming something of a fat shiny drug fighting super hero, defender of Vegas lounge acts and the American way. But in the end they both would exit public life in a less than honorable ways, Nixon via a helicopter after resigning and Elvis on a toilet.