Heard a radio interview with Peter H. Hunt, director of both the Broadway play and movie production of 1776. Hunt discussed how his Broadway cast performed the play for President Nixon at the White House. However, before the performance some of Nixon’s staff came to him and requested that the song “Cool, Considerate Men” not be performed because Nixon thought it was directed at him. Hunt laughed in telling the story as he pointed out to the staffers that the play took place two centuries before Nixon and that he wouldn’t cut the song.
Then because Hunt refused to delete the tune, the actors, all of whom, by now knew that Nixon did not care for the song, purposely over acted and embellished it as much as they could just to get to Nixon. At then end of the song however, Hunt noted that Nixon immediately jumped to his feet and shouted “Bravo” just to show that he was not offended.
Hunt then explained how a couple years after that however, when Jack Warner got the movie rights to make the play into a movie, Nixon called Warner and requested that the song not be included in the movie. Hunt noted that Nixon said something along the lines to Warner, “Look they stuck it to me when they did it at the White House and I went along with it but now I’m asking that you not include it in the movie.” Warner did as Nixon requested and cut the song from the movie (see further explanation/discussion at 6:58 mark here.)
Here is the tune. Don’t really see why paranoid Nixon disliked it so much. However, because he did so, the song now has gained even greater notoriety than it otherwise would have.