King Tut: A Classic Blockbuster Museum Exhibition That Began as a Diplomatic Gesture

President Richard Nixon hung on to the brass rail of a Victorian parlor car, leaning out the window and waving to cheering crowds. The train huffed from Cairo to Alexandria, passing cotton fields, orange groves, and water buffalo. The date was June 13, 1974, and back in Washington, D.C., the House Judiciary Committee waited impatiently for the White House to turn over tapes of conversations recorded in Nixon’s office. The committee wanted to know what Nixon knew about the Watergate burglary.

On the train next to Nixon stood Anwar Sadat, the president of Egypt, with whom he was about to sign a bilateral agreement. Negotiated by Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s secretary of state, it represented a step forward in forging a new partnership between the two countries after the termination of diplomatic relations seven years earlier. Tucked into the agreement was a clause devoted to culture. The United States would help the Egyptians reconstruct Cairo’s opera house, while Egypt would send the “Treasures of Tutankh­amun” to the United States… read more >

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