President Is at Camp David - Hardcover

Nelson, W Dale

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0815603185 ISBN 13: 9780815603184

Publisher: Syracuse University Press, 1995

Synopsis

This text is a history of Camp David, the presidential retreat in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland, from its origins as Shangri-La in the Roosevelt administration. Using memoirs, interviews and presidential archives, it documents the people and activities of the presidential camp.

About this title

About the Author

W. Dale Nelson spent forty years as a reporter with the Associated Press. During twenty years in Washington, he won the Aldo Beckman Award for excellence in reporting about the presidency. He is the author of several books including Who Speaks for the President?, also published by Syracuse University Press.

From the Back Cover

Invitations to Camp David, the presidential retreat in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland, are rare, limited to the closest members of the president's family and administration, and to the most notable foreign dignitaries. For those who will never visit it, W. Dale Nelson's book offers an intimate look at the camp and its eminent lodgers. Franklin D. Roosevelt, who selected the spot, which was originally built as a boys camp, called it Shangri-La. Harry Truman visited the rustic retreat only occasionally. In the 1950s, Dwight Eisenhower found it a perfect haven, added a small golf course, and renamed it after his father and grandson. Eisenhower was also the first to lift the veil of secrecy around the retreat by inviting Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to visit. With Khrushchev's visit, the "spirit of Camp David" came to symbolize one of the first thaws of the cold war. Other former Soviet Premiers would follow, including Leonid Brezhnev, who, it is said, was accompanied by a stewardess who spent the night in his cabin. It was in this tranquil setting that Lyndon B. Johnson imported aides to plan and debate the Vietnam War. After his reelection, Nixon went to the mountaintop to reorganize his administration. In the meantime, he had secret taping devices installed in the presidential lodge. It was Jimmy Carter, though, who restored Camp David's international fame by using it for the intense negotiations to achieve peace between Israel and Egypt.

Reviews

Nelson's entertaining history of the presidential retreat in Maryland's Catoctin Mountains sheds light on a relatively obscure but not unimportant aspect of the presidency. Using memoirs, archives and interviews, he relates how FDR selected the site, how Truman made the first improvements and how succeeding chief executives have used (or neglected to use) the camp's rustic facilities. Nelson emphasizes how Camp David, named for President Eisenhower's father and grandson, has often provided an informal setting for summit meetings such as the 1960 Eisenhower-Khrushchev talks, which forged the short-lived "Spirit of Camp David" thaw, and the meetings between Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin that President Carter hosted and that led to the 1978 Camp David Accords. The historical meetings reviewed here are not as interesting as the trivia Nelson has collected: Margaret Truman's opinion that the place was claustrophobic and gloomy; Pat Nixon's warning to incoming First Lady Nancy Reagan that "Without Camp David you'll go stir crazy." Nelson was an AP reporter for 40 years. Photos.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Nelson describes the alterations, decorations, and world-shaping events that each president brought to Camp David. Called Shangri-La by its founder, Franklin Roosevelt, most successive presidents were certain this rural outpost would not suit them. Yet, each was entranced by the place and left his mark. Named Camp David by President Eisenhower, in honor of his father and grandson, the presidential retreat kept that name through the next eight presidents. The impact of the Bush and Clinton administrations are covered briefly in an epilogue. Created as a secret hideaway, the camp has become internationally famous, and this in-depth, illustrated look once would have been considered a breach of secrecy. Denise Perry Donavin

Edition details

• Publisher: Syracuse University Press
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0815603185
• ISBN 13: 9780815603184
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 216