AAAAH!
From Eyes & Ears, February 23rd, 1984
Disney Vacation on Nixons’ Agenda
Former President Richard Nixon and family certainly didn’t “nix” Disney from their vacation plans, as they spent three days on a whirlwind tour across our property recently.
The Nixon family, who last visited here in May 1982 at the height of our tencennial celebration year, took a behind-the-scenes tour of Epcot Center during construction, along with visits to the Magic Kingdom. This time around, however, they were able to enjoy all of our Epcot Center pavilions, shows and restaurants, as well as visits to the Magic Kingdom, Walt Disney World Village and Fort Wilderness Resort Campground.
Accompanying Mr. Nixon were his wife Pat, daughter Tricia Cox and her son Christopher (age 4), daughter Julie Eisenhower and her children Jenny (age 4) and Alex (age 3), as well as long time friend, Bebe Rebozo.
The Nixons, who especially wanted to take their grandchildren on a Walt Disney World vacation, had an opportunity to eat at a variety of restaurants across property, including Pioneer Hall (where they watched the Hoop-Dee-Doo Revue), Alfredo’s and the San Angel Inn at Mexico.
While the kids seemed to especially enjoy It’s A Small World and Cinderella’s Golden Carousel, Mr. Nixon had an opportunity to tour some of our Epcot Center backstage areas and meet with some cast members, including the World Showcase Fellowship students, before departing on Friday.
I just hope that somewhere there’s footage of Nixon at the Hoop-Dee-Doo. Just knowing that happened is pretty special.
This wasn’t Nixon’s most famous Walt Disney World trip, though. That had to have been his 1973 trip, where, in a press conference at the Contemporary Resort Hotel, he famously proclaimed, “I am not a crook.” (Spoiler Alert: He totally was a crook!)
The fact that Nixon’s famous statement was made from Walt Disney World might be one of the very best obscure facts for us Disney nerds to drop on our non-Disney nerd friends. It makes a good counterpoint to the fact that John Lennon, whom Nixon was obsessed with deporting, signed the papers that dissolved the Beatles partnership at the Polynesian Village Resort in 1974. Heaven only knows what happened at the Golf Resort that we don’t know about. Kissinger probably hid with Elvis there in 1977 to start planning the Iranian hostage crisis.
Anyway, Nixon. Figment. There you go.
Figment thinks Nixon’s Grandson is mighty tasty!
consider my mind sufficiently blown
“I’m sorry Mr. Nixon, but I’ve been forced out of the Imagination pavilion. Now “they won’t have Dreamfinder to kick around anymore!.. as you know..”I am NOT a plush!”
Is that H.R. Haldeman dressed as Dreamfinder? Spiro T. Agnew was over at the Golf Resort, hanging out in the Player’s Lounge.
Reminds me of how much I miss the original Journey into Imagination attraction.
You’ll notice that Nixon’s right arm is fake. His real arm is inside that puppet of a boy.
Wow. Nixon with Figment and Dreamfinder. If there’s anything more surreal than that picture Nixon took with Elvis in the Oval Office, it’s this.
Hospitals have made him cry,
But there’s always a free way in his eye,
Though his beach just got
too crowded for his stroll.
Roads stretch out like healthy veins,
And wild gift horses strain the reins,
Where even Richard Nixon has got soul.
Chris Cox, the little guy in the picture there, actually ran for Congress this year in New York’s 1st Congressional District out on Long Island. His father is the head of the state GOP, and tried to clear the primary race for him, but instead he was unceremoniously trounced in the Republican primary.
This is why my readers are the best readers in the world. A little hilarity, a little information! That is truly, truly surreal that the little kid in that picture ran for Congress this year. Amazing – I had no idea.
And Future Guy is so right about this being just as surreal as the picture of Nixon and Elvis!
“Only Nixon could go to China…. at EPCOT.”
[…] Nixon – who was that, again? (Interestingly, as Progress City, U.S.A. points out here, an internal Walt Disney World publication documented a 1980s Nixon family vacation to Disney […]