This Week in NPC History: Guess which U.S. President had legit creds to join the Club

This Week In National Press Club History

Dec. 15, 1921: President Warren G. Harding, former publisher of the Marion, Ohio Daily Star, and the only president since the Club’s founding in 1908 to be professionally qualified for National Press Club membership, casts his vote at the annual NPC election.

While in the White House, Harding voted in other Club elections, attended Club events, and played poker with reporters on at least one occasion. Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, and Gerald Ford visited the Club frequently. Johnson began stopping by the Club in the late 1930s soon after his election to the House of Representatives. Ford holds the record for fifteen Club luncheon addresses.

Dec. 18, 2012: Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta tells a National Press Club luncheon he has a “deep and abiding respect for the Washington press corps, which plays an essential role in making our democracy strong by holding leaders and institutions accountable to the people they serve.”


This Week In National Press Club History is brought to you by the History & Heritage Committee, which preserves and revitalized the Club’s century-old history through lobby displays, events, panel discussions and a long-standing oral history project.

For more information on the Committee’s activities, or to join it, contact Chair Gilbert Klein at [email protected].