With the recent addition of Barack Obama, there are now 44 chief executives represented in the Hall of Presidents in Walt Disney World. But perhaps none is more associated with Disney than Richard Nixon.

To begin with, when the Liberty Square attraction opened in 1971, Nixon was in office (although it wasn't until Bill Clinton in the 1990s when a sitting president would have a speaking role in the show).

Nixon was born in Yorba Linda in Orange County, Calif., just a stone's throw from where Disneyland park would rise in 1955. Just a few weeks after Disneyland's opening, Nixon -- then Vice President of the U.S. -- and his young family visited the park.



GIVEN THE KEY TO DISNEYLAND BY C.V. WOOD

It was a major press event. Nixon was greeted on the steps of City Hall by Fess Parker, the Disney star who played Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone. And presenting Nixon with a ceremonial key to Disneyland was none other than Cornelius Vanderbilt Wood, one of the chief designers of the park who would soon fall out of favor with the Disney hierarchy; Wood was unceremoniously dismissed several months later, but would go on to create several amusement parks around the country, most notably Freedomland in the Bronx.



Nixon and his entourage, which included members of his brother's and his wife's families, spent the rest of the day hopping from ride to ride, having a great time. Nixon, in fact, called Disneyland "a paradise for children -- and for grownups, too. I don't know when I've had so much fun."

In 1959, during his second term as Vice President, Nixon returned to Disneyland to help launch the brand new Disneyland-Alweg monorail system.

Nixon would visit Disneyland many times over the years. He was even at the Disneyland Hotel in 1961 to speak at a Republican find-raiser. After he was elected President in 1968, Nixon frequently visited Orange County; his "western White House" was in nearby San Clemente. During one visit, the Disneyland Band greeted him at the airport by playing "Hail to the Chief."



But perhaps Nixon's most notorious visit to a Disney park came in 1973, during the height of the Watergate crisis, when the now-beleaguered president spoke in front of 400 Associated Press managing editors at the Contemporary Resort at WDW. During his speech, Nixon said, "People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook."



Several months later, however, Nixon would become the first president ever to resign from office.



One other interesting Nixon/Disney trivia fact: Nixon White House Press Secretary Ron Ziegler worked as a Jungle Cruise skipper in Disneyland while he was a student at USC.