In 1983 after the Beach Boys had played the national mall on the 4th of July 3 years in a row Reagan's secretary of the interior James G. Watt decided that they were suddenly not "wholesome" enough to play the national mall.
In response to Watt’s claim that they’d be replaced by a “wholesome” event, the Beach Boys argued that they were indeed wholesome. “We sing about patriotic themes," Love noted. "Like ‘Surfin’ U.S.A.’” They even pointed out that the Soviet Union had invited them to play in Leningrad in 1978 and the former Cold War enemy “did not feel that the group attracted the wrong element.”
Unfortunately for Watt both President Reagan and VP Bush were huge Beach Boys fans.
It probably wasn’t the band’s comments that landed Watt in deep water; it was almost certainly the comments of his bosses. Vice President George H.W. Bush described the Beach Boys as “my friends” and added, “I like their music.” First Lady Nancy Reagan apologized to the group on behalf of the White House. The Department of the Interior was said to have received 40,000 complaint calls. On April 7, two days after Watt had introduced his ban, the president reversed it. But press coverage of the dispute had led to increased interest in the band, and they had secured another booking for July 4 that year.
Which led to this creative response to Watt:
Normal Beach Boys service was resumed on Independence Day 1984, by which time Watt had been presented with a plaster foot with a hole in it by his colleagues and then was forced to resign after being heard making bigoted remarks.
And of course.
He later admitted that he’d never even heard of the group when he banned them
Nice