Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: I talked to Vice President Agnew in Palm Springs three
Speaker 1: weeks ago and expressed my concern for our country. The
Speaker 1: drug culture, the hippie elements, the SDS, black Panthers, etc.
Speaker 1: Do not consider me as their enemy, or as they
Speaker 1: call it, the establishment. I call it America, and I
Speaker 1: love it, Sir. I can and will be of any
Speaker 1: service that I can to help the cunt out. These
Speaker 1: words were scrawled in messy cursive on American Airlines stationery,
Speaker 1: as if they'd been written in haste while a plane
Speaker 1: was touching down, and this strange letter set into motion
Speaker 1: a surreal encounter between two giants of the era. It
Speaker 1: was nineteen seventy and the establishment and the counter culture
Speaker 1: couldn't be further apart. The Vietnam War raged and the
Speaker 1: young were taken to the streets to protest but Elvis
Speaker 1: Presley wasn't thinking in those terms. He was more concerned
Speaker 1: with the drug epidemic that he believed was destroying a generation.
Speaker 1: He believed that with the aid of a powerful man,
Speaker 1: he could help put an end to it, and so
Speaker 1: one evening in a Los Angeles hotel, Elvis sat down
Speaker 1: and wrote a desperate plea to Richard Nixon, the President
Speaker 1: of the United States. He framed himself to the President
Speaker 1: as a particularly unique bridge between youth culture and the establishment,
Speaker 1: one who could travel into drug rings and communes that
Speaker 1: perhaps more square federal agents wouldn't have access to. He
Speaker 1: sketched it out. He'd carry a gun and wear a badge,
Speaker 1: using his fame to access and expose the counterculture. He'd
Speaker 1: even get rid of his own drug paraphernalia as proof
Speaker 1: of his dedication to the cause. Strangely enough, the White
Speaker 1: House agreed to a meeting, and so on December twenty
Speaker 1: one of nineteen seventy, Elvis arrived at the White House
Speaker 1: using a side door so that the press corps would
Speaker 1: not notice his arrival. He wore his signature white jumpsuit,
Speaker 1: his cape, and an oversized crucifix, and he came bearing
Speaker 1: a particular gift, a custom cult forty five pistol with
Speaker 1: ivory grips, which was engraved for the President. The atmosphere was,
Speaker 1: needless to say, tense. The Secret Service was wary of
Speaker 1: the rock star, and the rest of the White House
Speaker 1: staff was baffled by the situation. It didn't grow less
Speaker 1: strange once the King walked into the Oval Office. Here
Speaker 1: were symbols of two very different Americas. Nixon, a calculating
Speaker 1: politician whose days were rigidly scheduled and who kept a
Speaker 1: firm ground of control, and then there was Elvis, who
Speaker 1: helped to spark the very counter culture that the President
Speaker 1: was now fighting against. We know the details of the
Speaker 1: meeting through the notes taken by Nixon's chief of staff.
Speaker 1: During the half hour meeting, Elvis spoke on addiction, the
Speaker 1: dangers opposed to the upcoming generation, and his deep desire
Speaker 1: to lend a hand in the war on drugs. He
Speaker 1: also showed the president his collection of guns and various badges.
Speaker 1: Nixon gamely played along, Recognizing a rare opportunity to use
Speaker 1: one of counterculture's icons toward his own ends, he agreed
Speaker 1: to appoint Elvis as a marshal not of course, in
Speaker 1: a serious role in law enforcement, but as a more
Speaker 1: symbolic gesture. The photo they took at the end of
Speaker 1: the half hour meeting would become one of the most
Speaker 1: requested images in the National Archives. In it, the President
Speaker 1: and the King stand next to each other, stiff smiles
Speaker 1: on their faces. A strange moment frozen in time. Elvis
Speaker 1: got the badge that he came for, a sort of
Speaker 1: costume of authority that he would treasure until his death,
Speaker 1: and Nixon got his photo op proving his credentials to
Speaker 1: America's youth. It was a moment where the lines between
Speaker 1: rebellion and conformity were blurred. Elvis Presley walked out of
Speaker 1: the White House with a badge and a gun, but
Speaker 1: his victory was hollow. The cultural divide widened, and the
Speaker 1: man who wanted to save America did very little in
Speaker 1: the drug war he so desperately wanted to fight. In
Speaker 1: the end, all that came of it was a strange
Speaker 1: photo of the time that a rock star walked into
Speaker 1: the Oval Office to ask the President to make him
Speaker 1: a hero. The cultural memory of the First World War
Speaker 1: is a singular one. When we tend to think of
Speaker 1: that war, It's easy to immediately jump to one very
Speaker 1: specific corner of it, the hopeless, grueling trench warfare in
Speaker 1: Western in Europe, even the exceptions such as the Arab
Speaker 1: Revolt and the Adventures of T. E. Lawrence, occupy a
Speaker 1: different place in the popular imagination. A general picture of
Speaker 1: World War I in history books is one of mud
Speaker 1: and desolate landscapes and barbed wire. Almost as common, though,
Speaker 1: are tales of German U boat attacks in the Atlantic.
Speaker 1: You see, in early nineteen seventeen, Germany was directing unrestricted
Speaker 1: warfare against enemy ships in the ocean, attacking from beneath
Speaker 1: with U boats and torpedoes. Neutral ships as well were
Speaker 1: considered a target. When fighting the British Empire, the greatest
Speaker 1: navy in history, Germany was prepared to show no quarter.
Speaker 1: But strangely, the most interesting naval encounter of the era
Speaker 1: didn't come from under the waves, but from far far
Speaker 1: above them. It happened on the twenty third of April
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventeen, eighty five miles off the coast of Denmark.
Speaker 1: A Norwegian ship called the Royal was sailing for the
Speaker 1: United Kingdom when they saw something unexpected overhead. It was
Speaker 1: a zeppelin flying Imperial German colors, and it was heading
Speaker 1: right for them. The zeppelin proceeded to drop a bomb
Speaker 1: across the bow, and the Norwegian crew panicked. This was,
Speaker 1: after all a cargo ship. It had no weapons or defenses.
Speaker 1: The sailors hurried for the lifeboats just as the zeppelin
Speaker 1: hovered near them, likely preparing for her next attack. They
Speaker 1: didn't drop another bomb, however. Instead it drifted down to
Speaker 1: sea level and launched a dinghy carrying a handful of
Speaker 1: German sailors and an officer, and these sailors boarded the Royal.
Speaker 1: The officer in charge of them demanded to know if
Speaker 1: there was any contraband on board the Royal. They searched
Speaker 1: the hold and it was long before they found timber
Speaker 1: that was destined for England to aid in army engineering projects.
Speaker 1: Norway was neutral at the time, so transporting the cargo
Speaker 1: to England was considered illegal. In response, the zeppelin's commander,
Speaker 1: Ludwig Bachholt, took possession of the Royal, leaving behind three
Speaker 1: sailors to conduct her to Germany as a prize of war.
Speaker 1: The action was an uncharacteristically daring one. Zeppelins were used
Speaker 1: for bombing and reconnaissance runs, but the boarding and capturing
Speaker 1: of an enemy ship wasn't in their playbook. It was
Speaker 1: a sensation back home as well. Paper after paper published
Speaker 1: glowing accounts of the action. German morale needed the boost.
Speaker 1: Although the United States had officially entered the war earlier
Speaker 1: that month, their troops had yet to reach Europe. Germany
Speaker 1: was gaining ground against the French but suffering dangerous losses
Speaker 1: on other fronts. So a freshly captured ship that was
Speaker 1: taken without a drop of blood spilt was just the
Speaker 1: sort of thing the people of Germany needed, even if
Speaker 1: ultimately the ship was of little military value. Oddly enough,
Speaker 1: though Captain Bachholdt was reprimanded harshly for needlessly endangering Zeppelin
Speaker 1: L twenty three, he had been on a reconnaissance mission
Speaker 1: after all, not an air raid, and eventually that June
Speaker 1: he would be relieved as captain of the vessel and
Speaker 1: given a different Zeppelin to command. This wound up being
Speaker 1: a blessing in disguise too, because Zeppelin L twenty three
Speaker 1: was shot down in August of that year. Not a
Speaker 1: single member of its crew survived. In the grand scope
Speaker 1: of the Great War, the career of Zeppelin L twenty
Speaker 1: three was barely a blip fifty one missions from April
Speaker 1: to August, but for an airship that only flew for
Speaker 1: five months, it gained a unique legacy. Many paintings have
Speaker 1: been made of the Zeppelin capturing the ship, and it
Speaker 1: looks like something out of a Jules Verne science fiction novel,
Speaker 1: an old world sailing vessel next to the enormous body
Speaker 1: of a dirigible, the sort of site that would never
Speaker 1: be seen in military history before or since. By capturing
Speaker 1: a ship, this Zeppelin captured our imaginations as well. Not
Speaker 1: bad for a single curious act of piracy. I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: This show was created by me Aaron Manke in partnership
Speaker 1: with iHeart Podcasts, searched and written by the Grim and
Speaker 1: Mild team, and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about
Speaker 1: the show and the people who make it over at
Speaker 1: Grimandmild dot com slash Curiosities. You'll also find a link
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Speaker 1: stay curious.