The story of the Turkey pardon, one of Washington’s weirdest traditions: NPR

A lamb-and-duck president will “pardon” a turkey on Monday.

Not to be snood-y about it, but this hen tradition has a long and often confused history. So let’s dispel the myths stuck in our beaks that far too many have latched onto and get to the truth of the matter.

Even presidents have made mistakes

Which president was the first to pardon a turkey? This can be one shaggy turkey storybut bear with us.

To paraphrase a former president, this depends on what the definition of “pardon” is.

“This is a tradition that goes back to Harry Truman’s presidency,” then-President George W. Bush said in 2008.

Um. Like that, but not when it comes down to it pardon turkeys.

“So continuing a tradition that President Truman began 50 years ago, I will at least — excuse me — keep a turkey off the Thanksgiving dinner table by granting a pardon to an Ohio turkey.” said former President Bill Clinton in 1996.

That is definitely not true. And he repeated it the next year.

“President Truman was the first president to pardon a turkey,” he said.

Still not true. It got so bad that the Truman Library had to weigh in.

“Library staff have found no documents, speeches, newspaper clippings, photographs or other contemporary records in our holdings that refer to Truman pardoning a turkey he received as a gift in 1947 or at any other time during his presidency.” said in a statement in 2003. “Truman sometimes suggested to reporters that the turkeys he received were destined for the family dinner table.”

Truman was the first to be given a turkey by the National Turkey Federation, but not the first to pardon one

This is where the confusion comes in. Turkey’s lobby has been present presidents with turkeys since 1947, when Truman was president.

But as the Truman Library notes, after the post-World War II Depression, the president ate his turkeys.

And that was the original intent – ​​a gift for the President’s holiday table… and for Big Turkey to get attention and remind people to eat turkey for Thanksgiving, of course.

There is a story that suggests Abraham Lincoln was the first to let a turkey go because his son liked it, but the White House Historical Association says the story is “probably apocryphal.”

So maybe it was Lincoln, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was Kennedy?

The first documented release of a turkey during a turkey presentation from Turkey was in 1963.

A sign hung around the neck of a turkey that read, “Well eaten, Mr. President.”

So clearly the intention was for the president to eat it. But Kennedy, for whatever reason, said, “We’re just going to let this one grow.”

The LA Times headlined the 1963 event as a “presidential pardon.”

But it certainly wasn’t official.

When was the word “pardon” first used by a president in relation to a turkey?

After Kennedy, Nixon and Carter sent their turkeys to the petting zoo. But the word “pardon” wasn’t used until Reagan in 1987, when he introduced that year’s White House turkey, “Charlie.”

It was during the Iran-Contra crisis, and ABC News correspondent Sam Donaldson called out a question about whether Reagan would pardon Oliver North and John Poindexter, who were involved in the arms swap. Reagan deflected, saying“If they had given me a different answer about Charlie and his future, I would have forgiven him.”

The Turkey pardon became an officially sanctioned event in the White House of George HW Bush

The elder former President Bush, Reagan’s vice president, formalized the event in 1989.

“(L)et me assure you and this fine empty turkey,” he said, “that he’s not going to end up on anybody’s dinner table, not this guy — he’s presented a presidential pardon right now — and allow him to live out his days on a kindergarten not far from here.”

And a tradition in the White House was born.