Manuel Sanchez

Manuel “Manolo” Sanchez was born in La Coruna, Spain around 1929.¹ He and his wife, Josefina or “Fina,” moved to Cuba in 1946, and then immigrated to the United States in 1950.² Businessman Bebe Rebozo recommended the couple to his friend, Richard Nixon; Manolo and Fina were hired as the Nixons’ driver and cook, respectively.³ They began working for the Nixon family in California in 1962. In 1968, they both became U.S. citizens; Nixon delayed his departure for the Republican National Convention to serve as their sponsor at the naturalization ceremony, and his daughters Tricia and Julie Nixon helped them study for their citizenship tests.⁴ 

When the Nixons moved into the White House in 1969, they brought the Sanchezes along; Manolo served as President Nixon’s valet, while Fina served as First Lady Pat Nixon’s maid.⁵ They were on the payroll of the Department of the Interior and lived on the Third Floor of the White House.⁶ As the president’s valet, Manolo Sanchez was always on-call. As TIME magazine reported: “Manolo is always there: waiting by the buzzer in his third-floor White House apartment or West Wing office for the signal to retrieve papers or bring the tray from the kitchen for a working lunch. He serves as a one-man gallery for presidential bowling in the basement, sits quietly in the Executive Office Building hideaway while Nixon works alone late at night, gives the word to Secret Service men and military aides about the departure time for presidential trips.”⁷

On May 9, 1971, President Nixon woke Sanchez up in the middle of the night to accompany him on a secret visit to the Lincoln Memorial. There, the president spoke to a group of young demonstrators who had assembled to protest the president’s involvement in the Vietnam War.⁸ 

After Nixon’s resignation from the presidency on August 9, 1974, Sanchez and his wife accompanied the Nixons on board Marine One when they departed the White House.⁹ When asked about their work at the White House, Sanchez noted: “It’s the palace of the United States. How many other immigrants have had our chance?”¹⁰ They returned with the Nixons to San Clemente, California, where they lived and worked for several years before moving back to Spain around 1978.¹¹ 

At this time, further information about his life is scarce, but according to Galician newspaper Faro de Vigo, “Josefina passed away in the mid-1990s, and her husband a few years later, well into the 21st century.”¹²