How Kasich met Nixon: 1970 letter lauded 'a great president'

It's not quite as famous as the Nixon-with-Elvis photo taken the same week, but the 1970 photo of an 18-year-old John Kasich shaking hands with President Nixon in the Oval Office has the same just-out-of-a-time-capsule feel.

Now, the Dayton Daily Newshas shed more light on how the 37th president came to meet the would-be 45th president. Daily News reporter Laura Bischoff unearthed the handwritten letter that the future Ohio governor wrote to Nixon and -- in a feat of hubris only a college freshman could pull off-- gave to the president of Ohio State University to hand-deliver.

The letter begins with Kasich's resume in student government and ends with a request for a meeting. In the middle, Kasich gushes about the greatness of the Nixon presidency:

I think that you, as far as I can judge, are not only a great president but an even greater person. I say even greater person because you sacrifice your political future for the good of the country. No American could ask more. You were faced with a bleak economic picture, welfare recipient problems, a dragging war and much more. You have either cleared or started the wheels turning toward the easing of our problems. That is why I am "burned up" when someone says, "What's Nixon done?" However, I feel that I have brought many to the fold.

Kasich wrote that he would "immediately pass up a Rose Bowl trip" to see the president -- no small sacrifice for an Ohio State student of the Woody Hayes era. “I know how busy you are and this is probably a ridiculous request but to me it would be a dream come true," he wrote.

Nixon wrote back the very next day, inviting Kasich to the White House.

Asked by Bloomberg Politics about the meeting recently, Kasich said he couldn't remember much about the photo, but did recall one thing Nixon said to him.

"He said you need to study foreign policy. It's really important."

Forty-five years later, Kasich has been less direct about his own intentions to run for president, though he's been doing the rounds of Washington press events sounding very much like a candidate for the 2016 GOP nomination.