On December 21, 1971, Elvis Presley appeared at the White House Gates with a letter and a request to speak to President Richard Nixon. In the letter, Presley wrote that he wanted to “help the country out,” with the fight against illegal drugs among young people. He felt he could reach young people because he was one of them. He also asked to be made a “Federal Agent at Large.”

The president directed staff to give Elvis an honorary Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Agent badge. According to notes from the meeting, Presley, “in a surprising, spontaneous gesture, put his left arm around the President and hugged him.”

The Oval Office is the primary presidential workspace. The first Oval Office was established by President William H. Taft in 1909. President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the Oval Office to its current location in the southeast corner of the West Wing in 1934. Since then, every president has used this Oval Office.