This week in National Press Club history: Desmond Tutu, Neal Sheehan, JFK's and Nixon's makeup

Oct. 6, 1999: The Most Rev. Dr. Desmond Tutu, Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, and 1984 Nobel Peace Prize winner, speaks at a National Press Club luncheon. He is one of the many prominent -- and controversial -- religious leaders who have addressed the Club, from the Dalai Lama to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Another, Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, then Vatican Secretary of State, and later Pope Pius XII, in an otherwise private and personal visit to the United States in 1936, told the audience that his appearance was “a tribute to the ideas and ideals of your press in reporting with accuracy and speed the events as they occur in all parts of the world.”

Oct. 7, 2009: Pulitzer Prize winner Neal Sheehan describes the start of the Cold War in his talk to the National Press Club. His new book, “A Fiery Peace in a Cold War,” recounts the fights in the U. S. military after World War II over the best system for the delivery of nuclear weapons: missiles or bombers. Crediting Gen. Bernard Schriever with the decision to build a missile delivery system in the United States as the only way to deter the Soviets, Sheehan said, “Without General Schriever, we might not be here this evening. We might be irradiated dust.”

Oct. 7, 2010: 96-year-old makeup artist Lillian Brown, in a career that spanned nine presidencies, tells her story to a National Press Club audience during an oral history interview conducted by NPC Silver Owl Larry Quinn. Best known for her role in the first nationally televised debate between Sen.John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard M. Nixon in 1960, Brown kept a file on every president on her client list, but never betrayed a confidence, she said, revealing only that she never used heavy doses of rouge or eye makeup, but simple powder, and always carried a pair of over-the-calf socks so men would never have to show a bare leg to a televised audience.

This Week In National Press Club History is brought to you by the History & Heritage Committee, which preserves and revitalizes the Club’s century-long history with lobby displays, events, panel discussions and its oral history project. The latter now contains over two hundred interviews with NPC officers and personnel, available to researchers in the Club’s archives.

Visit the Club’s website for our new Timeline at “about/history.”