Member-only story
Before the likes of Starsky and Hutch, Batman and Robin, or even Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson, there was an exceptionally iconic crime-fighting duo in the form of President Richard Nixon, and the King of Rock n Roll, Elvis Aaron Presley. On the 21st December 1970, the two stood together to take a picture together that turned out to be one of the most iconic photos in history. The image looks like a photoshopped joke or something out of a parallel universe where historic icons of the 20th century hang out together, but the picture is very much real.
The story began in Memphis a few days earlier, when Elvis’ father, Vernon, and wife Priscilla, complained that the King had spent too much on Christmas presents. Elvis had spent over $300,000 for 32 handguns and ten Mercedes-Benzes. In pure Rock n Roll style, Elvis drove off that evening to the airport and caught the next available flight, which just so happened to be bound for Washington. Elvis (as he often did) was travelling with a vast amount of handguns and his collection of police badges, which he seemed to have a growing obsession for. However, there was one badge that Elvis really, really wanted … The King wanted a badge from the federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs from Washington DC. “The narc badge represented some kind of ultimate power to him,” Priscilla Presley wrote in…
