presentation of a turkey to the President each year began in 1947 under President Harry S. Truman. The presentation was partially born out of a lobbying campaign: the Truman Administration, in an effort to conserve grain for foreign aid campaigns, began promoting "Meatless Tuesdays" and "Poultryless Thursdays" in the autumn of 1947. Not only did American citizens quickly grow frustrated with the (voluntary, but strongly encouraged) restrictions and begin disregarding them in short order, the National Poultry and Egg Board, incensed at the attack on their industry, noted that not only was Thanksgiving on a Thursday (thus making the annual Thanksgiving turkey a taboo), but Christmas and New Year's Day also landed on a Thursday that year. A truce was called in the dispute in early November, before the Thanksgiving holiday, but "Eggless Thursdays" continued to be promoted for the rest of the year, meaning that pumpkin pie, another Thanksgiving staple, was still on the forbidden foods list. Records on file at the Truman Library show that Truman publicly admitted eating at least some of the turkeys. The Eisenhower Presidential Library says documents in their collection reveal that President Dwight Eisenhower ate the birds presented to him during his two terms. President John F. Kennedy spontaneously spared a turkey on November 19, 1963, just three days before his assassination. The bird was wearing a sign reading, "Good Eating Mr. President". Kennedy returned the massive turkey to the farm, saying "we'll let this one grow." Scattered reports in The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times referred to it as a pardon, but Kennedy did not refer to it as such. Likewise, Richard Nixon also spared some of the turkeys given to him during his time as president. During the Carter administration, First Lady Rosalynn Carter arranged to have the turkeys sent to petting zoos, and no public ceremonies were held. The first President on record issuing a "pardon" to his turkey was Ronald Reagan. Reagan had been sending the turkeys presented to him to farms and zoos since at least 1982, and 1987's turkey, Charlie, was likewise headed to a petting zoo. At the time, Reagan was facing questions over the Iran-Contra affair, on whether or not he would consider pardoning Oliver North (who had yet to be tried for his involvement in the affair); Reagan conjured the notion of the turkey pardon as a joke to deflect those questions. Reagan