Published: December 18, 2007 10:25 pm         

Bruce Kauffman: The King meets Tricky Dick

I have written before that the 1970s was a strange decade — one that featured disco, mood rings, beanbag chairs, leisure suits and the Vietnam War. The sports event of the decade was a tennis match in the Houston Astrodome between a woman, Billie Jean King, and 55-year-old tennis hustler named Bobby Riggs.

Perhaps this week in 1970, the decade’s first year, was the harbinger. For it was on December 21, 1970, that the decade’s strangest photo-op took place. Shaking hands and grinning as a photographer took their picture in the Oval Office were the president of the country for much of the 1970s, Richard Nixon (further proof of the decade’s strangeness), and the “King of Rock ’n’ Roll” himself, Elvis Presley. Nixon is wearing his usual dark suit and forced smile, while Elvis is in his “New Elvis” getup of long hair, longer sideburns, flowery shirt, wide belt and cape. His eyes seem glazed and unfocused.

Which is unsurprising considering that at the time he already had a long history of drug dependence, including both prescription drugs and those of the illegal variety.

When Elvis died in 1977 his autopsy revealed that in his body at the time of death were various amounts of codeine, methqualone, ethinamate, Valium, Demerol, Meperidine and morphine.

Elvis spent a lot of time stoned out of his mind.

Which is ironic, if not amusing, because his visit with Nixon that day was for the purpose of becoming a special drug enforcement agent, complete with DEA badge. Elvis had requested the White House meeting so that he could sign up for Nixon’s war on drugs, and Nixon, whose many shortcomings did not include a blindness to good public relations, immediately agreed. White House aides later suggested that “special agent” Elvis compose an anti-drug theme song with the possible title, “Get High on Life.”

Getting high during his life was certainly an Elvis specialty, at least according to those who knew him best. His ex-wife, Priscilla Presley, says that years of drug abuse made Elvis both impulsive and irrational. Often, for example, if he didn’t like what he was watching on television, he would take out a pistol and blow out the screen. An ex-girlfriend, Linda Thompson, says Elvis took so many drugs that he often fell asleep while eating.

Which arguably makes Elvis the poster-boy — entertainment division — for the weirdness that defined the 1970s. Thompson once noted that Elvis liked to wear around his neck an Egyptian ankh, a crucifix and a Star of David. When asked why, he would reply, “Because I don’t want to miss Heaven on a technicality.”

The general consensus is that if Elvis did miss out on Heaven, it wasn’t on a technicality.

Bruce Kauffmann’s e-mail address is bruce@historylessons.net

     

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