Now, Meet the Real Odd Couple

A hefty man with long black hair walked up to the gate of the White House on the morning of Dec. 21, 1970. He handed a guard a five-page, handwritten letter.

“Dear Mr. President. First, I would like to introduce myself. I am Elvis Presley. . . .”

And it was. His arrival, unannounced, led to one of the stranger pop culture events of the 1970s--a meeting between a president and the King.

Later that day, Richard M. Nixon received Elvis A. Presley in the Oval Office for a chat about the American spirit and the threats it faced from hippies and the “drug culture.” You can view documents from this event and see all 28 official White House photos of the meeting at an unlikely spot on the World Wide Web--one that is sponsored by the U.S. government.

It’s at https://www.nara.gov/exhall/exhibits.html, the digital home of the National Archives.

If you have visited government sites, you know that they can be overladen with bureaucratic language and as difficult to navigate as a tax form. But not this one. The folks at the archives have put together a fascinating site that offers user-friendly views of not only the prerequisite big guns of American but also the minutiae of history: an 1865 police blotter entry noting the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, a Navy memorandum on the sinking of the Titanic in 1912.

The site’s newest exhibit, “When Nixon Met Elvis,” proves that the archivists are anything but stodgy. It begins with the Presley letter, in which the king of rock ‘n’ roll offers to serve as an undercover agent to expose what he considers to be threats to the country. “The drug culture, the hippie elements, the SDS, Black Panthers, etc. do NOT consider me as their enemy or as they call it The Establishment. I call it America and I love it.”

He goes on to say, “I have done an in-depth study of drug abuse and Communist brainwashing techniques and I am right in the middle of the whole thing where I can and will do the most good.” He also mentions, by way of credentials, that “I was nominated this coming year one of America’s Ten Most Outstanding Young Men.”

Officials then arranged a presidential meeting to thank Presley for trying to stop “the drug epidemic” and to ask him for help “in bringing a more positive attitude to young people,” according to a White House memo.

Called from his hotel, Presley arrived for the 12:30 p.m. appointment dressed in tight velvet slacks, white shirt opened to reveal his chest and velvet cape. Hanging from his neck was a gold medallion.

Presidential assistant Bud Krogh noted in a summary of the brief meeting that the two men chatted about several topics, with Presley offering his opinion that the Beatles “had been a real force for anti-American spirit.” He also mentioned his studies in “Communist brainwashing.”

Political pundits have often described Nixon as paranoid, but the president met more than his match in Presley. It seems apparent Nixon knew Presley was going off the deep end, and at several points he expressed concern that the singer retain his “credibility.”

The decade turned out to not be a good one for either man. Nixon resigned in disgrace in 1974 (you can read his letter of resignation elsewhere on the archives site) and Presley died in 1977 at age 42, ravaged by the misuse of drugs.

The meeting between these two men, who looked like they came from different planets, was just a kitschy, somewhat poignant snapshot in history. But the people at the digital archives know that it is just these kinds of moments that can make history come alive.

* Cyburbia’s e-mail address is david.colker@latimes.com.