Michael Meets the President
Around this time, John Branca received a telephone call from Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Dole asking if Michael would donate ‘Beat It’ as background music for a thirty-second television commercial and sixty-second radio spot on drunk driving. When John presented the idea to Michael, his reaction was swift. ‘That's tacky,’ he said. ‘I can't do that.’
John told Michael he would call Elizabeth Dole and tell her that they were not interested. However, Michael then got an idea. ‘You know what?’ he mused. ‘If I can get some kind of an award from the White House, then I'll give them the song. How about that?’ he said, now excited. ‘See what you can negotiate with them, Branca.’
‘What do you want?’ asked John, bemused.
‘Well,’ Michael said, like a kid coming up with a Wish List. ‘I want to go to the White House. I want to be on a stage with the President [Ronald Reagan], and get an award from him. And I sure want to meet Nancy [First Lady, Nancy Reagan]. The whole works. Why not? You think you can do that, Branca. Can you get me an award from the President?’
John laughed. ‘Well, I can sure try.’ The next day, John Branca went to work on the idea. He telephoned Elizabeth Dole and told her that she could have the song for her drunk-driving campaign if she dreamed up some kind of humanitarian award that the President could present to Michael. She agreed. The President agreed, as did the First Lady.
The presentation was set for 14 May 1984. It had started out as an exciting day. In fact, it was said that there hadn't been that much excitement at the White House since the day the hostages came home from Iran. For the occasion, the President wore a navy blue suit, navy blue and grey striped tie and white shirt. Nancy was chic in a white Adolfo suit trimmed with gold buttons and gold braid. It hardly mattered what she wore, though, for anyone standing next to Michael Jackson that day would pale in comparison. Michael appeared resplendent in an electric-blue sequined jacket adorned with sequined braid, a sequined gold sash, and sequined gold epaulets. He also wore his trademark single white, rhinestoned glove.
Hundreds of White House officials and secretaries, many of them clutching cameras, gathered on the sun-speckled lawn to catch a glimpse of Michael. More than a hundred yards back from the stage, the White House fence was lined solidly with fans, many wearing a single white glove like the one Michael sported.
Two thousand people cheered as Ronald Reagan stepped on to a stage on the White House South Lawn with Nancy and Michael. ‘Well, isn't this a thriller,’ he said. ‘We haven't seen this many people since we left China. And just think you all came to see me.’
As Michael, the President and the First Lady walked to the Oval Office, one middle-aged White House office worker standing across from the Rose Garden shrieked, ‘I saw his foot. I saw his foot!’
A special metal detector was constructed in the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden to screen Michael and his entourage of eight security men; Frank Dileo, John Branca and publicist Norman Winter. There was also a young man with Michael, a person no one seemed to know, except for Michael. He was dark, in his early twenties, and good looking. Dileo, Branca and Winter were perplexed as to who this person was, and when Michael was asked how the man should be identified to the press, he said, ‘He's a close friend of mine. I don't care what you tell people. It's no one's business.’ Norman Winter must have known that the presence of this mystery friend would raise some eyebrows. In order to protect Michael from controversy, he identified the man as a Secret Service agent.
Once at the podium, the President noted that Michael was ‘proof of what a person can accomplish through a lifestyle free of alcohol or drug abuse. People young and old respect that. And if Americans follow his example, then we can face up to the problem of drinking and driving, and we can, in Michael's words, beat it.’ After the President handed him a plaque, the only words Michael nervously spoke – or whispered, rather – were, ‘I'm very, very honoured. Thank you very much, Mr President.’ A pause. ‘Oh, and Mrs Reagan, too,’ he added as an afterthought. Then, he giggled as if it suddenly occurred to him that yes, he really
was
standing there with the President of the United States.
Six news photographers covering the event wore white gloves on one hand as they shot pictures of the Reagans and Jackson. The whole event took about nine minutes. Afterwards, nine police motorcycles and several vans and mounted police escorted Michael from the White House.
But before they left, the entourage was given a special tour of the White House; Michael was particularly fascinated by a portrait of Andrew Jackson in a military jacket very much like the blue-sequinned one he wore that day. After the tour, the group was scheduled to spend time with the President and the First Lady.
Things took a turn for the worse, though, when Michael arrived at the Diplomatic Reception Room where he was to meet privately with the Reagans. He had been told that only a few children of staff members would be present. Instead, there were about seventy-five adults. Michael put one foot into the Reception Room, took a quick look around, and then ran out, down the hall and into the bathroom off the Presidential Library. Frank Dileo and the rest of the entourage followed him. However, before they could reach him, Michael closed the door and locked it.
‘Hey, Mike, come on out,’ Frank said.
‘No. They said there would be kids. But those aren't kids,’ Michael shouted back.
‘But there
will
be children. We'll go get the children,’ a White House aide promised. Then he turned to an assistant. ‘Listen, if the First Lady gets a load of this, she's going to be mad as hell. Now you go get some kids in here, damn it. Get James Baker's kid. She's cute. [Chief of Staff James Baker had brought his six-year-old daughter, Mary Bonner.] I don't care
who
you get, just get some kids in here.’
Frank then addressed the closed bathroom door, again. ‘It's okay, Michael. We're going to get the kids.’ His voice had a patient tone, as though he were soothing a disturbed child. John Branca stood near by, watching with a bemused expression on his face.
‘Well, you'll have to also clear all of those adults out of there beforeI come out,’ Michael warned.
‘Done.’
Someone ran into the Reception Room. ‘Okay, out!’ he said. ‘Everybody out. Out, out,
out!
’
Senior staff and cabinet members cleared that room so quickly, an observer might have thought there had been a bomb threat.
‘What's happening?’
‘Where's Michael Jackson?’
‘Has he left?’
Everyone spoke at once as they were ushered from the room.
The aide then ran back to the bathroom door, where a cluster of men with worried looks had congregated. He conferred with one of Michael's people. ‘Okay. You can come out now, Michael,’ Norman Winter said, finally. ‘Everything is okay.’
‘Are you sure?’ came back the soft voice.
Frank Dileo knocked on the door with his fist, one loud thud. ‘Okay, Mike, outta there. I mean it.’
The bathroom door opened slowly. Michael appeared. He looked around, slightly embarrassed. Frank put his arm around him. ‘I'm sorry,’ Michael told him, ‘but I was told there wouldn't be so many people.’
Michael was then ushered back into the Reception Room, where awaiting him were just a few officials and their children. Elizabeth Dole was the first to approach Michael. She handed him a copy of
Thriller
and asked him to sign the record jacket.
Then Ronald and Nancy Reagan arrived and led Michael into the Roosevelt Room to meet some other aides and their families.
Nancy Reagan whispered to one of Michael's staff. ‘I've heard that he wants to look like that singer Diana Ross, but really, looking at him up close, he's so much prettier than she is. Don't you agree? I mean, I just don't think
she's
that attractive, but
he
certainly is.’
The First Lady waited for a response. There was none.
‘I just wish he would take off his sunglasses,’ she said. ‘Tell me, has he had any surgery on his eyes?’
The aide shrugged. He knew better than to discuss Michael's private life, even with the President's wife.
She studied Michael closely as he spoke to her husband on the other side of the room. ‘Certainly his nose has been done,’ she observed, her tone hushed. ‘More than once, I'd say. I wonder about his cheekbones, though. Is that makeup, or has he had them done too?’
By this time, the First Lady didn't act as if she actually expected an answer, but the aide shrugged again anyway.
‘It's all so peculiar, really,’ Nancy observed as Ronald Reagan shook Michael's hand. ‘A boy who looks just like a girl, who whispers when he speaks, wears a glove on one hand and sunglasses all the time. I just don't know what to make of it.’ She shook her head in dismay, as if at a loss for words.
Finally, the Jackson employee broke his silence. ‘Listen, you don't know the half of it,’ he said, rolling his eyes. He looked at her with a conspiratorial smile, expecting her to laugh. She didn't. Instead, she stared at him for a cold moment. ‘Well, he
is
talented,’ she said as she walked away, ‘and I would think that's all that
you
should be concerned about.’