There was little doubt whether Nixon and Buchanan condoned this kind of violence; to show his appreciation for the attack, the president invited leaders of the rioters’ unions to the White House for a celebratory photo op. Nixon claimed that he was honoring “labor leaders and people from Middle America who still have character and guts and a bit of patriotism.” In return, the labor chieftains gave him an honorary hard hat. As Nixon later reminisced, the hardhats “were with us when some of the elitist crowd were running away from us. Thank God for the hardhats!”
