Little Girl Blue (20 page)

Concert program.
Author's Collection

Karen photographed during one of several West Coast sessions for the solo album. Here she is listening to playbacks in studio A on the A&M Records lot in Hollywood, early 1980.
Bonnie Schiffman

At A&M Records.
Bonnie Schiffman

Dancing and drumming in “I Got Rhythm,” a production number from the Carpenters' final television special,
Music, Music, Music
, filmed March 1980.
ABC-TV

With guest stars Ella Fitzgerald and John Davidson in
Music, Music, Music
.
ABC-TV

One of several
Made in America
photo sessions, 1981.
A&M Records

I
N THE
nation's capital for a music industry awards dinner, Karen and Richard visited the White House as guests of presidential assistants James Cavanaugh, Ken Cole, and Ronald Ziegler on April 25, 1972. There they met Julie Nixon Eisenhower, the president's daughter and a fan of their music, but President Richard M. Nixon was in a meeting with Henry Kissinger and unavailable at the time of their visit. The Carpenters returned to the White House just months later on August 1, this time meeting briefly and posing for photos with President Nixon in the Oval Office. He thanked Karen for her work as National Youth Chairman for the American Cancer Society, an organization the duo supported with the donation of more than one hundred thousand dollars in proceeds from concert tour program sales. Conversation with Nixon was trite. He was known to be inept at making small talk, and Karen and Richard were quite nervous, too. Nixon asked about the amount of sound equipment the Carpenters carried on tour. “
About 10,000 pounds
,” they told him.

“We can probably hear you all the way here,” he replied, referring to their scheduled concert in nearby Columbia, Maryland.

In the spring of 1973 Sherwin Bash was contacted on behalf of President Nixon with a request for the Carpenters to entertain at the White House following a state dinner honoring West German Chancellor Willy Brandt. Bash was quick to accept the invitation on the
group's behalf, and on April 30, 1973, during a hectic touring schedule of one-nighters, the exhausted Carpenters entourage flew into Washington, D.C. Unbeknownst to them, the Watergate scandal was on the verge of erupting. In fact, just one day prior the president had met with key advisors Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman at Camp David, where he confirmed their suspicions that they would be asked to resign their positions.

As the Carpenters relaxed in a nearby hotel, President Nixon addressed a nationwide television and radio audience from the Oval Office regarding Watergate. “
I want to talk
to you tonight from my heart on a subject of deep concern to every American . . .,” he began. “Today, in one of the most difficult decisions of my presidency, I accepted the resignations of two of my closest associates in the White House. . . . In any organization, the man at the top must bear the responsibility. . . . I accept that. And I pledge to you tonight, from this office, that I will do everything in my power to ensure that the guilty are brought to justice, and that such abuses are purged from our political processes in the years to come, long after I have left office.”

As the Carpenters' orchestral director Frank Pooler was transported to the White House for his Tuesday morning rehearsal with the Marine Corps Orchestra, agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation secured the files of Haldeman and Ehrlichman by placing guards outside their offices. Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler called it a “safeguarding procedure.” Nixon was outraged to learn of the guards and quickly arranged for them and the files to be transferred to a less conspicuous location. Unaware of the heightened security issues, Pooler went on rehearsing the group he remembers as the best orchestra he ever worked with while with the Carpenters. “Usually it took me two hours to rehearse an orchestra,” he says, “but these guys were so good we were done in about an hour. We finished fast and got a private tour of the rooms of the White House the tourists don't generally get.”

That evening after dining at the Jockey Club, the band gathered in their downstairs dressing rooms to prepare for the performance. Frank Pooler realized he was the only one in the group who had yet to meet the president. “I've got to meet him,” he told Sherwin Bash. “I'm here, for
God's sake. It'll be something to tell my grandchildren.” Bash directed him to the Grand Hall where a receiving line of distinguished guests, many in uniform, waited to meet Nixon. Pooler found the president to be much friendlier and better looking in real life than in pictures or on television. “Nixon was charming,” he says. “He told me that his daughters had been fans of the Carpenters for a long time.” As Pooler was introduced to Mrs. Nixon, he could hear the band warming up. “I'm sorry,” he told the First Lady, realizing he was late, “I don't have time to talk to you!” The three laughed as Pooler rushed to lead the orchestra.

Around 10:30
P.M.,
the president and Mrs. Nixon entered the East Room. Addressing the crowd, which included then soon-to-be Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and his date, actress Mamie Van Doren, Nixon proclaimed, “The Carpenters are very much alive. They are young America at its very best. Mr. Chancellor,” he said, addressing the dignitary, “knowing how you have such affection for young people all over the world and how you, as well as I, are working for the peace that we want for them and their children in years to come, we think that, tonight, having the Carpenters—one of the finest young groups in America—entertain us is most appropriate.”

The Carpenters opened their performance with “Close to You,” musically tiptoeing in an attempt to please such an esteemed audience. “
We were afraid
to touch anything,” Karen recalled. “I was afraid to even breathe on the drums. I was barely touching them because I didn't want to offend anybody.” She drummed on more rhythmic numbers like “Love Is Surrender,” “Top of the World,” and “Mr. Guder,” but returned to center stage on the ballads. The Carpenters' new drummer, former Mickey Mouse Club Mouseketeer Cubby O'Brien, had recently joined the group following the departure of Jim Anthony.