Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life (20 page)

K
ing Timahoe, the Nixons’ Irish setter, could be quite a pest. “King” disliked leashes, was disobedient, maniacally energetic, and spoiled. (Just ask Alexander Butterfield.) King wouldn’t have tolerated being dressed up by the Lyndon Johnsons. (Though it is possible LBJ would have been amused if the staff person assigned to costume King Timahoe had been bitten. Johnson would have told this story happily at, say, Senate lunches.)

King Timahoe would have had a great time if anyone had let him into the room when Elvis visited. King always had a great time. Undisciplined. Fast. A dog who pretty much got his way. A spaceship could have flown in the window, and that would have added to the already bizarre fun. King could have barked at the spacemen. Peed on Elvis.

A little background information, since we all know Elvis met Nixon. (The photograph continues to astonish and is still often requested.) Elvis, in the doghouse (pun intended) with his wife
and father for buying too many expensive guns and cars, ran away from Graceland. He flew around the country in a pretty manic state, breaking out in hives—from chocolate, his doctor maintained—or, more likely, in a rash that was a drug reaction.

Elvis had met Paul Frees, who was famous for doing voice-overs. Frees was the voice of the Pillsbury Doughboy. Americans heard Frees, though they never saw him. In any case, Frees—every bit as far-out as Elvis, but with less money—showed Elvis his credentials from the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, and explained that cops let him go along with them on drug raids in Marin and even transport suspects to the police department in his Rolls-Royce. Frees was an “agent at large.” Presley biographer Albert Goldman writes: “[Elvis] could go after the magic emblem of a federal narc! Gazing raptly at the document, as if he were beholding the Holy Grail or the Shroud of Turin, Elvis murmured: ‘There isn’t much that I’ve got that I wouldn’t give to have one of those!’”

Thus began Elvis’s journey toward President Nixon. On the plane to D.C., he met Republican Senator George Murphy (who was riding in coach; the stewardesses thought they might like to meet), and he asked if Murphy could help him with what he wanted to accomplish. It seems the senator could. In Washington, Elvis first called on the FBI, but J. Edgar Hoover was not available, and the person who did meet him turned him down. Elvis, however, had earlier left a note for President Nixon (6:30
A.M.
A penny for the thoughts of the man in the guard’s station who was approached by Elvis, already in full regalia). The note was relayed to the President’s office, and, much to everyone’s surprise, the President agreed to meet with him. At this time, President Nixon was just starting another bureau to deal with America’s drug problem, so Elvis’s arrival seemed fortuitous. Also, forty-one-year-old Egil
“Bud” Krogh had just started to work at the White House, and he thought the meeting would be a good idea.

Enter Elvis, clad in purple, with an enormous gold belt buckle he’d been given for drawing the biggest crowds ever to his shows in Las Vegas. With this he wore amber-tinted sunglasses and a cape. That’s the picture everyone snickers over. Apparently reeling under the influence of drugs, Elvis asserted his patriotism (accurate, given how he construed patriotism), then began badmouthing the Beatles, who, he said, sang about drugs, were disheveled (no capes or purple outfits), and made money in America only to return to England, leaving behind corrupted youth, but not their money. Jane Fonda was also on Elvis’s shit list. The Smothers Brothers. Elvis asked outright to be deputized; the President—who often said he had very little authority—floated the question to Bud Krogh, who wasn’t experienced enough to know whether the President was hoping to hear him reply in the negative or in the affirmative. Soon, the only person who appears not to have been functioning at lunatic level, the Assistant Director of the FBI, who initially said no to Elvis (Elvis had suggested giving the FBI a “donation” of five thousand dollars), arrived at the White House with the documentation. Fast-forward to the future: hippies snorting, throwing darts into the official photo of Elvis and President Nixon.

That day, Elvis also gave a photograph of himself and his wife, Priscilla, to Nixon, as well as a photograph of his daughter in a baby bonnet. He held these things in one hand, while using the other to shake hands. Elvis also bestowed upon Nixon a Colt .45, which he’d earlier had to leave for safekeeping with the Secret Service. Nevertheless, President Nixon thanked him for this kindness. For his part, Nixon gave Elvis’s two friends and bodyguards souvenir cuff links and a pin for each of their
wives. RN said of the men: “Boy, you’ve got a couple of big ones here! I’ll bet they take good care of you.” No one in the Secret Service looked anything like Elvis’s friends/bodyguards. Elvis replied in the affirmative. A photograph of the foursome was taken. For no reason I can understand, King Timahoe was not let into the Oval Office. During this time, it’s likely King’s thoughts were of catching a crow on the White House lawn, running away from valet Manolo Sanchez, or sleeping on expensive upholstery. What might have been the thoughts of Ollie Atkins, White House photographer? Or Egil “Bud” Krogh? And the thoughts of John Finlator of the FBI, the person who met Elvis and turned him down, only to be forced to show up later with exactly what the King wanted?

The fiction writer would of course be very interested in presenting everything from the POV of Mr. Finlator, token Sane Person. King the dog is just too easy; every day is pretty much the same for a high-strung dog who knows it will be indulged. My personal interest (of course) is in imagining what Mr. Nixon said to Mrs. Nixon that evening as they had dinner. It was December 21. Her mind would probably have been on Christmas. Any problems with groups scheduled to see the White House Christmas tree? Presents all ready for Dick and the girls? He might still have been thinking about the encounter with Elvis. He had said to Elvis: “You dress pretty wild, don’t you?” Had the President ever heard Elvis’s rendition of “Blue Christmas”? Whether he had or, more likely, hadn’t, he had still let
Elvis
know that
he
knew things were a bit amiss, and he’d given him good advice, as well; he had assimilated this good advice and wanted to pass on his wisdom. He’d said to Elvis: “Never lose your credibility.” That was the thing: you couldn’t lose your credibility, or what would you have? Well, of course then you didn’t have credibility, but how were you going to get it back, if
you’d lost it? There was nobody coming behind you with a cart to pick up the credibility and put it in and deliver it back to your door, that was for sure. Mrs. Nixon would agree. She’d worked hard all her life, and she had credibility as a mother, and as a secretary, and as a teacher, and as the wife of Richard Nixon. Maybe it wasn’t the thing to do, to have Haldeman sign off on Elvis’s visit with a scrawled “You’ve got to be kidding” and Krogh . . . well, he was a youngster, and a bit inexperienced. Elvis was a man who went from rags to riches, just the way the song said, but who also went into the Army and served his country. He did do that, and it didn’t do his career one bit of good, even if he did meet a teenager in Germany and wait for her to grow up; then, when it was a little more suitable, he married her. Anyway, better to have those people, patriots, dress up—better that real performers and patriots put on costumes than the hippies, who only wanted to cause everything to come crashing down so they could dance in the rubble in their feathers and their yak-fur vests.

“Dick! I was on the phone with Dolly. She’s going to call you later.”

“Everyone in the Christmas spirit? That’s good. Hang up your stocking and the President will fill it if Santa doesn’t. All of you hang them up. We want to see Fina’s and Manolo’s stockings hung. Has somebody arranged for Fina and Manolo to have their own stockings? Pat, I’ve got quite the story to tell you.”

“What is it?”

“Well, you know, there was a note or something delivered to the White House today by Elvis Presley. I didn’t see it. And that reminds me: he said he’d brought me a . . . well, another present I haven’t looked into, either. Nice of him. Brought pictures of his wife—that teenager I read about in
Life
—
Life
or someplace like that. He came in to see me, quite colorful, I guess you could
say, wearing a cape, all dressed up in purple velvet. Tall man. The thought was, it would be appropriate for the President to meet with him because I’ve told you about the Drug Enforcement Administration we’re starting, putting a lot of money into that one. Well, here comes Elvis, and it must have made him pretty happy that I’d meet with him and have a picture taken. Ollie got that down. There I was with Elvis Presley, who said he’d come wanting to help us fight drugs, and so forth. Not a bad idea, someone the youngsters know.”

“Elvis was here and I didn’t know about it?”

“Oh, I guess I should have tried to call, should have thought of that, but you can’t think about everything. Well, he was nice enough. Got a grudge against the Beatles. Make more money than he does, that sort of thing. Cuts into his sales, naturally. Not even from our country, they come here and throw their hair around like he swivels his hips, and all that. It might all be different now, I don’t know. Our girls never cared about Elvis, and I’m just as glad we didn’t have to have him sing at Julie’s wedding. Probably we’d have had to get all new clothes for him, as well as the bride. Can’t imagine Tricia would ever see anything in Elvis. Did Julie listen to his music? ‘Heartbreak Hotel,’ isn’t that right? I remember a few things people might think I never noticed. The President is always watching. That’s what they’ve got to believe. I guess we should have gotten him to sing that ‘Heartbreak’ song. Lighten up things a bit in the Oval Office. Some group of Korean kids coming through tomorrow, one of them with some problem or whatever. Haldeman’s got it under control. I’ll see them in the corridor and act surprised, rushing off somewhere. President’s had an emergency. They’ll get their picture with their teacher in the Oval Office. Unless, come to think of it, that was today, and it never happened. If it’s tomorrow, maybe you could come for five
minutes, give them a thrill, meeting Mrs. Nixon. You look pretty in any picture, too.”

“What did you and Elvis talk about, Dick?”

“Oh, not so much. He seemed to think he could stop a concert and talk about how bad drugs were, things like that. I don’t know if that would have worked. He did say something about how I was doing my job, he was doing his. Something that didn’t really need saying, at least from my perspective. Gave me a picture of himself with his wife. She’s pretty, but her hair was as high as her face. I guess if your hair stuck up that way, I’d know you’d seen a ghost. Mr. Lincoln walking around in the Lincoln Bedroom, instead of Mamie.”

“Julie and Dolly might like a photograph of you with Elvis, Dick. Did Ollie think he got a good picture?”

“Well, he’s sure to, because he’s the White House photographer. Not an easy job, because you can’t just order people around. They’re nervous, being in the Oval Office. Don’t want to be told ‘Take a step to the left.’”

“I really like Ollie.”

“Oh, I
know
you do.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m just kidding. I courted you, and I won you fair and square, didn’t I? Well, everything like that is always
fair,
in love and war, as they say.”

“I think they’re waiting for us to stop talking so they can serve dinner, Dick.”

“What if it was fillet of Ollie Atkins? That’d surprise you, I bet.”

!!!!!!!!!!!

“Okay, well, maybe I am a little jealous, but you know me too well to worry. Or maybe I should say I know you too well to worry.”

“Dick, can we go back to my idea about photographs for Christmas presents? You know, photographs are considered art now.”

“Quicker than a portrait, that I can say. You look up and down the corridor, and you think of all of them—all important men, sitting one day and sitting the next for their portraits, and what do they have, in the end? A framed picture of themselves that might be good and might not be any good at all. Either way, who’s really going to look at it? Though it is hung in the White House, I suppose.”

“Have you ever seen photographs by Ansel Adams? He photographs very beautiful scenes. And Margaret Bourke-White? A woman did the first cover of
Life,
you know. They say she’s fearless, she’ll do anything to get the picture.”

“Let’s bring her into the White House and let her practice her art, then maybe we won’t have to sit for our official portraits. It’s sure to take plenty of time I don’t have.”

“I have a book I can put by your bed of Ansel Adams’s photographs. One is of the moon rising over the mountains out in New Mexico, and it makes me want to go there tomorrow, it’s so lovely.”

“No time. I have to read a report Henry sent over.”

“I’ll speak to Ollie about making copies of you and Elvis for Julie and Dolly for Christmas.”

“Well, maybe you can bring it up when you have your picture taken with the whatever they are, the Koreans. I’ll have Haldeman call your office and tell you what the problem is there. Some kid with a problem—I can’t remember.”

“Maybe Elvis would like a picture for his daughter, Dick, don’t you think?”

“She’s a baby. Looks like she’d teethe on anything you handed her. Maybe she could come on over here and I could let her chew on Henry’s latest report instead of me. Give her a special document saying she’s First Baby.”

“You know, Dick, today is the anniversary of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s death.”

“Is that right? What did he die of?”

“I think he had a heart attack.”

“That wife was a lot of trouble, wasn’t she? What are we having for dinner? Leftovers? Well, they wouldn’t serve the President that. What wine are we drinking?”

“I was thinking about
The Great Gatsby,
and then someone on the radio mentioned that today was the day Fitzgerald had died in California, in 1940. I don’t care for any wine. I wonder whether we shouldn’t do something to honor his memory, once Christmas is over—I think there was a play based on his novel. We could have it performed at the White House.”