History has a way of making things awkward sometimes, and some of the strangest moments happened when powerful people were stuck in rooms or meetings.
A rough meeting at Camp David
Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson probably knew Lyndon Johnson was angry before he’d even arrived at Camp David in April 1965. He probably didn’t realize how angry he’d be, though. Pearson had recently given a speech in Philadelphia where he called for America to stop bombing North Vietnam, and Johnson took the comment personally.Â
He allegedly grabbed Pearson by the lapels and tore into him face-to-face. It wasn’t exactly a diplomatic conversation between two neighbors, and it sure was awkward for anyone around watching.
The microphone was already on
It was meant to be a joke, but the Soviets didn’t take it that way. President Ronald Reagan was doing a sound check on August 11, 1984, right before his weekly radio address. He jokingly said that he’d signed legislation outlawing Russia forever, and that bombing would begin in five minutes.
The real broadcast hadn’t started, but still, the audio got out anyway, and it sure made things uncomfortable. That wasn’t the kind of thing to be joking about during the Cold War. It’s no surprise that the Soviet government didn’t find it funny.
An unexpectedly personal interview
One of the most awkward moments for Jimmy Carter came during an interview with Playboy in 1976. He mentioned that he had looked at women with lust and said he’d committed adultery ‘in my heart many times.’ No, he wasn’t confessing to an affair.
He was simply explaining his interpretation of Christian teaching, although not everybody saw it that way. He was a married man running for president, after all, so people thought those kinds of comments were weird.
Dinner took an unexpected turn
Everyone’s supposed to look calm and very much in control during a state dinner. That’s not what happened to George H. W. Bush on January 8, 1992. He was visiting Tokyo while he was sick, and during the dinner, he suddenly vomited. Bush collapsed beside Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa during dinner.Â
Miyazawa did help support him as Secret Service agents rushed in. It wasn’t Bush’s fault, as he had been suffering from gastroenteritis and did manage to recover quickly. That doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable, though.
A late-night search for pizza
Boris Yeltsin was the president of Russia in 1994, and he went on a visit to Washington. It went in a direction nobody could expect. Then-President Bill Clinton later told historian Taylor Branch that Secret Service agents found Yeltsin outside Blair House late at night.
He was allegedly wearing only his underwear and was trying to get a taxi so he could eat pizza. To nobody’s surprise, it turns out that Yeltsin was intoxicated and had slipped away from his security detail. He wandered off again the next night and ended up in the Blair House basement.Â
A call the White House couldn’t take
Even presidents make drunk phone calls apparently, and Richard Nixon’s team was well aware of that. British Prime Minister Edward Heath wanted to speak with Nixon on October 11, 1973, during the Arab-Israeli war. Military assistant Brent Scowcroft raised the request.
But then, Kissinger said Nixon was ‘loaded’ and put off the call. In other words, he was drunk. A major international crisis was unfolding, yet the president of the United States was too far gone for a serious conversation. You don’t get more awkward than that.
The welcome that went very wrong
President Carter sure had a way with words. He arrived in Warsaw on December 29, 1977, and interpreter Steven Seymour handled the translation of his comments. It didn’t take long for things to get awkward. Carter said in English that he understood the Polish people’s ‘desires for the future,’ but it ended up being mistranslated as something far more sexually suggestive.
Another translation error made it sound like Carter had left America for good. The problems came from the fact that Seymour knew Polish, but Russian was his main language. He was given a smaller interpreting role pretty soon after.
A few seconds at the G8
This awkward moment has video footage of it. On July 17, 2006, the G8 summit took place in St. Petersburg, and there was a moment when George W. Bush came up behind then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel.Â
He put both hands on her shoulders and gave her a quick rub. She immediately shot her arms upward and pulled away, but Bush kept moving. It was just as uncomfortable as it sounds, if not more so.
The conversation that never got started
Mark Twain was a man famous for telling amazing tales. Yet somehow, he hit a wall when he met President Ulysses S. Grant in 1870. They shook hands at the White House. Then, there was nothing.
Neither of them seemed to know what to do next, and Twain actually said, ‘Mr. President, I am embarrassed. Are you?’ Grant then smiled, and that was probably the best possible outcome at that point. It was so awkward that neither one of them forgot it.
Tears, snow, or maybe both
Democratic hopeful Ed Muskie was giving a speech outside the Manchester Union Leader in New Hampshire on February 26, 1972. He was speaking angrily about the press’s attacks on him and his wife, Jane, during the primary race. Things soon got odd.
Reporters claimed he looked like he was crying, but Muskie said it was snow melting on his face. Who knows what was really happening? Either way, it wasn’t the kind of strong attitude that people were expecting from a presidential candidate, and it essentially ruined his campaign.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
13 dark chapters of history most people never learned in school
A lot of history gets reduced to wars and presidents, but the true horror stories are the ones that end up ignored in the margins.
13 dark chapters of history most people never learned in school
