WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden spent his third week in office at the Pentagon, visiting the National Institutes of Health and working on the government’s COVID-19 response.
He put it off by hitting one of his granddaughters at Mario Kart during his first presidential visit to Camp David, the historic haven for American leaders.
This is what Camp David traditionally offers presidents: a break from Washington where they can drop their ties and relax with the family. The complex in the Maryland Mountains, just 60 miles from the capital, has everything from a bowling alley to an archery range.
It has been used by every president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt first went there in 1943 as a personal refuge, and according to Michael Giorgione, who served as commander of Camp David for President Bill, it has been a major diplomat throughout history. negotiations and policy discussions. Clinton and George W. Bush and wrote the book ‘Inside Camp David’.
With the exception of Donald Trump – he generally preferred his own private clubs – every president used Camp David “for a personal getaway, an escape from the screams and the noise and the will of the White House, and really goes “Retreat to this exclusive mountain. It is one goal. And the other is to bring world leaders there,” Giorgione said.
When Roosevelt arrived for the first time, the rustic retreat was ″ a shelter with little hot water and with brush growing all the way to the windowsills, ‘former Associated Press reporter Dale Nelson wrote in his 1995 history: ″ The president is in Camp David. ″ Still, Roosevelt calls it somewhat fantastically ‘Shangri-La’, the name of the utopian community in the popular 1933 novel ‘Lost Horizon’.
When Dwight took over Eisenhower, he added a green and a new name: Camp David, after his father and grandson.
Over the years, presidents have made upgrades to their liking. Richard Nixon added a heated pool, and George HW Bush installed a rule for horseshoes. Barack Obama, known for his love of basketball, built a track.
The complex also has a theater, shooting range, horse riding and tennis courts.
“I leave my problems outside the gate,” Lady Bird Johnson, wife of President Lyndon Johnson, once said of the camp.
Biden himself told reporters before leaving for Washington that his main plans for the long weekend were to ‘just hang out with the family and do what we always do’. While presidents usually take the Marine One helicopter for the short trip, the weather forced the president to fly via Air Force One to Hagerstown, Maryland, before taking a caravan to camp.
His granddaughter Naomi posted on her Instagram on Saturday night a clip of Biden playing the video game and endorsing it: “a little rusty, but he still (barely) won.”
Biden, however, cooperated with him and met with national security advisers on Saturday and issued a statement on Trump’s acquittal in his indictment and on Sunday signed an executive order to re-establish a White House office.
History contains more than just golf games and winter sledding. It also hosts foreign dignitaries and was a gathering place for diplomacy. Giorgione says the camp’s relaxed atmosphere lends itself to relationship building.
‘There’s a certain feeling of going camping unlike the White House, which is a little more formal, a little more stuffy than you would say, and certain presidents find a much better connection than in the White House. , “he said.
Roosevelt housed British Prime Minister Winston Churchill there in 1943 to help lay the groundwork for the invasion of Normandy, during the first visit by a foreign leader.
The camp became synonymous with feverish diplomatic negotiations after President Jimmy Carter invited Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1978 to negotiate a peace deal. After 13 days of tense talks, the two agreed on a framework that eventually led to peace between the two nations.
Bill Clinton tried to repeat the diplomatic alchemy when he invited Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to Camp David for peace talks in the Middle East in 2000. After two weeks of negotiations, the summit ends without an agreement .
George W. Bush visited the camp regularly and used it to entertain a variety of foreign leaders, as well as for a cabinet retreat to devise the government’s response to the 9/11 attacks.
In 2012, Obama hosted the Group of Eight summit for world leaders there, after protests on Wall Street made his hometown of Chicago out of the question. World leaders stayed in the 12 huts of the complex and were able to spend their free time on site.
Trump spent little time there and offered no foreign dignitaries. He once joked with a reporter: ‘Do you know how long you want it? For about 30 minutes. ”
But Giorgione said he expects Biden, with his appreciation for diplomacy, is likely to use the space to host foreign leaders after the coronavirus pandemic, which ruled out most personal gatherings, is under control. He said that when foreign leaders descend on Camp David, it can be like a “sleepover for adults”.
‘Going camping in the huts creates an atmosphere where leaders are very close to each other. There is no large conference room with chandeliers and coffee service. It is a home-made, rustic gathering, ”he said.
Participants “walk the paths together, we go cycling, we sit at a nice table in a small conference room.”
“It created this art of having to descend into each other’s personal space and find time to speak legally,” he said.