Sun Flashbacks: Photographer breached Nixon’s security

Saturday, July 1, 2000 | 2:52 a.m.

Zoran Veljkovic, photographer from 1966-1972. When Las Vegas Sun photographer Zoran Veljkovic trained his camera on someone his focus was singular, his intensity complete. It was a trait that once stunned the U.S. Secret Service but got him a handshake with President Richard Nixon.

Assigned to cover Nixon's departure at Nellis Air Force Base after a visit to Southern Nevada, Veljkovic made his way through the crowd -- and somehow through the president's security, a line of Secret Service agents.

Suddenly he found himself alone with Nixon as the president began boarding the plane.

The Secret Service men, blocking the crowd a few feet away, were "absolutely white in the face, not knowing how this happened," said Veljkovic, adding that he was just as surprised. "It was just one of those things. I was looking through my camera at him before I realized what had happened.

"I took my photos, then (Nixon) shook my hand and went up the steps."

One of Veljkovic's most memorable subjects, however, was not one of the dozens of celebrities he photographed or a global political figure, but a legless young soldier returning from Vietnam.

"There was this young kid being carried off the plane and two empty pant legs," he said. The photo ran on the front page with the caption "Welcome Home."

Veljkovic left the Sun to go on a sabbatical and then did freelance work for magazines. Today he works as a supervisor at the Monte Carlo and takes photographs as a hobby.