President Johnson gives farewell news conference at Club, 1969

This Week In National Press Club History

January 17, 1969: President Lyndon B. Johnson gives a farewell news conference at the National Press Club shortly before leaving office, saying that he thought ”it would not be right for me to leave Washington without coming here to my old club that I have been visiting since [the thirties].” He signed the guest register for the last time, but that page of the register disappeared even before he had left the Club. It has never been returned.

January 18, 1967: Arthur Krock, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, in a speech at the National Press Club, says that the Club “has never been a spectator, but always an active element in the progress of American journalism at what has been its focal point, Washington.”

This Week In National Press Club History is brought to you by the History & Heritage Committee, which is dedicated to preserving and revitalizing the Club’s history through displays, panel discussions, events and lectures, as well as its oral history project.

For more information on the Committee’s activities, or to join the Committee, contact Bill Hickman at [email protected].