On Tuesday, May 8, 1973, at midday, Richard Nixon received the football star Pele, member of the Brazilian team that won the World Cup championship of 1970.
In those days, in contrast with the popularity of the 2014 World Cup, professional soccer scarcely made it onto Americans' radar screens. Nixon kept his encounter with Pele brief, perhaps because, by his political calculus, there were so few votes in football, and he was busy trying to cope with a fast-escalating Watergate scandal.
Reconstructed from Nixon's secretly recorded White House tapes and other records, the scene begins when Pele walks into the Oval Office with his wife, Rosemeri. Like a star-struck fan, Nixon tells him, "You are the greatest in the world."
As photographers loudly click their shutters, Pele shows the president a São Paulo newspaper clipping about their first meeting, in Brazil, when Nixon was vice president. Demonstrating his fabled awkwardness in such settings, Nixon says, "Do you speak any Spanish?"
"No, Portuguese," Pele replies. "It is all the same."
Pele presents the president with an autographed football ball, and the grinning Nixon declares, "He always wins!"
"Soccer," Pele reminds him, "is very different from American football."
"Oh, I know how different it is!" the president replies. "The main thing is to use your head." Pele also provides a motion picture on football for Nixon's viewing, politely adding, "I know you are busy."
"No - sports films I watch!" Nixon says.
"You have no sons," says Pele (who clearly has been briefed). "But I hope that your grandsons will want to learn from it." (Pele does not envisage the possibility that Nixon's granddaughters might one day be interested in football.)
Nixon reaches for a presidential pen: "Here's a souvenir for you - you see the president's seal?" Then: "I like to encourage young people to play sports."
Pele reminds him. "My aim is to send soccer coaches to the U.S. and have your coaches in baseball, swimming and track and field come to Latin America."
"Very good!" says Nixon, clearly eager to wind it up. "Sports makes friends!" Finally, after a hasty, staccato goodbye from the president, Pele and his wife are gone.
Then Nixon turns to his friend Donald Kendall, chief of PepsiCo, one of Pele's backers, who has stayed behind. Kendall has lately expressed fear in private that because he was head of the business and industry division of the 1972 Committee to Re-Elect the President (popularly known by the spring of 1973 as Creep), a locus of the Watergate misbehaviour, he might get dragged into Nixon's growing mess.
"Come sit down a minute here," the president jovially tells Kendall. "Got our soccer ball!" Then Nixon morphs from Jekyll to Hyde. He abruptly turns to Watergate. "I can assure you that the investigation is now going forward totally," he gruffly tells Kendall. "And they'll get to the bottom of the son of a bitch. One way or another."
In those days, in contrast with the popularity of the 2014 World Cup, professional soccer scarcely made it onto Americans' radar screens. Nixon kept his encounter with Pele brief, perhaps because, by his political calculus, there were so few votes in football, and he was busy trying to cope with a fast-escalating Watergate scandal.
Reconstructed from Nixon's secretly recorded White House tapes and other records, the scene begins when Pele walks into the Oval Office with his wife, Rosemeri. Like a star-struck fan, Nixon tells him, "You are the greatest in the world."
As photographers loudly click their shutters, Pele shows the president a São Paulo newspaper clipping about their first meeting, in Brazil, when Nixon was vice president. Demonstrating his fabled awkwardness in such settings, Nixon says, "Do you speak any Spanish?"
"No, Portuguese," Pele replies. "It is all the same."
Pele presents the president with an autographed football ball, and the grinning Nixon declares, "He always wins!"
"Soccer," Pele reminds him, "is very different from American football."
"Oh, I know how different it is!" the president replies. "The main thing is to use your head." Pele also provides a motion picture on football for Nixon's viewing, politely adding, "I know you are busy."
"No - sports films I watch!" Nixon says.
"You have no sons," says Pele (who clearly has been briefed). "But I hope that your grandsons will want to learn from it." (Pele does not envisage the possibility that Nixon's granddaughters might one day be interested in football.)
Nixon reaches for a presidential pen: "Here's a souvenir for you - you see the president's seal?" Then: "I like to encourage young people to play sports."
Pele reminds him. "My aim is to send soccer coaches to the U.S. and have your coaches in baseball, swimming and track and field come to Latin America."
"Very good!" says Nixon, clearly eager to wind it up. "Sports makes friends!" Finally, after a hasty, staccato goodbye from the president, Pele and his wife are gone.
Then Nixon turns to his friend Donald Kendall, chief of PepsiCo, one of Pele's backers, who has stayed behind. Kendall has lately expressed fear in private that because he was head of the business and industry division of the 1972 Committee to Re-Elect the President (popularly known by the spring of 1973 as Creep), a locus of the Watergate misbehaviour, he might get dragged into Nixon's growing mess.
"Come sit down a minute here," the president jovially tells Kendall. "Got our soccer ball!" Then Nixon morphs from Jekyll to Hyde. He abruptly turns to Watergate. "I can assure you that the investigation is now going forward totally," he gruffly tells Kendall. "And they'll get to the bottom of the son of a bitch. One way or another."
© 2014 The New York Times