Presley had had an argument at home about his spending, walked out, flew to Washington via Los Angeles and Dallas, and wrote a five-page letter to the president in the air. He asked to be made a Federal Agent-at-Large in the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, and said he could help because he was accepted by young people as one of them.
The world's best cold outreach
He handed the letter to a guard at the northwest gate at about half past six in the morning, along with a note saying where he was staying. It went up the chain to the deputy counsel to the president, Egil Krogh, who was a fan and who recommended taking the meeting.
By lunchtime the appointment was on the schedule. The internal memo recommending it, which survives, argues in the driest possible bureaucratic register that the president should meet Elvis Presley on the grounds that it might be useful with young people.
Presley brought a Colt .45 in a display case as a gift, which the Secret Service took off him at the door.
What was said
Krogh's memorandum of conversation records Presley telling Nixon that the Beatles had been a focal point of anti-American spirit, that he had been studying communist brainwashing, and that he could reach people the government could not.
He asked again for the badge. Nixon asked an aide whether they could get him one, and they could. He also asked for autographed photos for Presley's wife and friends, which Nixon signed.
Presley then, in the account of everyone present, hugged the president — which nobody did.
Why it is the most requested photograph in the archives
The National Archives sells more copies of Ollie Atkins' picture than of the Bill of Rights, the moon landing or anything else in its holdings.
Part of that is the sheer visual collision. Part of it is what the meeting says about access: the most guarded office in the world was reachable, that morning, by a man who wrote a letter on a plane and gave it to a guard, because the right person read it and thought it was worth doing.
What people get wrong
Nixon did not invite him and there was no build-up; the whole thing was arranged in a few hours from an unsolicited letter. Presley was not made a federal agent in any real sense — he was given an honorary badge, which conferred nothing. And the picture is not from a public event: no press were present, and it only became famous because the White House photographer's images are public records.
He wrote it on a plane, handed it to a guard at 6:30 in the morning, and was in the Oval Office by lunch.