Tales from the Tap Room: Club 'deans' discuss tumultuous times, 6:30 pm March 28

The National Press Club's three most senior former presidents will share a combined 265 years of experience and wisdom at 6:30 p.m. Monday, March 28, in the Holeman Lounge.

John Cosgrove, Allan Cromley and Donald Larrabee, the Club's three "deans," will reminisce and tell anecdotes about the tumultuous years when they led the Club. The free event, called "Tales from the Tap Room," is sponsored by the Club's History and Heritage Committee.

Cosgrove led the Club in 1961, the first year of John Kennedy's White House residency, and JFK turned up unexpectedly at the Club to attend the Cosgrove inauguration. But that also was the tense year of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and intensified U.S.-Soviet rivalry worldwide.

Cromley was president during 1968, the incredible year when Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, opposition to the Vietnam War reached a fever pitch, Lyndon Johnson declined to seek a second term, and Richard Nixon won the White House. It also was when the Washington riots turned the Press Building into something like a fortress and almost forced the Club to close.

Larrabee was president in 1973, the year the Watergate scandal exploded and Nixon fired the attorney general and the special prosecutor in the "Saturday Night Massacre." At the Club, women journalists -- who had only been allowed to become Club members 18 months before -- were beginning to join the Club in larger numbers. And the organization presented its first Fourth Estate Award to CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite.

This fireside chat with the former presidents will feature hors d'oeuvres and a cash bar. Although there is no charge for attending, reservations are required -- call (202) 662-7500.