WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden spent his third week in office visiting the Pentagon, touring the National Institutes of Health, and working on the government’s COVID-19 response.
He topped it off by beating one of his granddaughters in Mario Kart on his first presidential visit to Camp David, the historic retreat for American leaders.
That’s what Camp David has traditionally offered presidents: a reprieve from Washington, where they can disconnect and relax with their families. The Maryland mountain compound, just 60 miles from the capital, offers everything from a bowling alley to an archery range.
It has been used by every president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt first moved there in 1943 as a personal retreat, and throughout history has been the site of major diplomatic negotiations and policy discussions, according to Michael Giorgione, who served as Commander of Camp David for Presidents Bill 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 has used Camp David ‘for a personal getaway, an escape from the hubbub and noise and the like of the White House, and really to this exclusive one. mountain retreat. That’s a goal. And the other is to bring world leaders there, ”said Giorgione.
When Roosevelt first arrived, the rustic retreat was a hideaway with little hot water and brush that grew up to the windowsills, ”former Associated Press White House reporter Dale Nelson wrote in his 1995 history: president is at Camp David. Still, Roosevelt called it somewhat fantastically ‘Shangri-La’, the name of the utopian community in the popular 1933 novel ‘Lost Horizon’.
When Dwight Eisenhower took over, he added a putting green and a new name: Camp David, after his father and grandson.
Over the years, Presidents have made upgrades to suit their tastes. Richard Nixon added a heated pool and George HW Bush installed a series of horseshoes for regulation. Barack Obama, known for his love of basketball, built a court.
The compound also features a cinema, skeet shooting range, horse riding and tennis courts.
“I am leaving my problems out the gate,” Lady Bird Johnson, President Lyndon Johnson’s wife, once said of the camp.
Biden himself told reporters before leaving Washington for the compound 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 motorcade to camp.
His granddaughter Naomi posted on her Instagram on Saturday evening a clip of Biden playing the video game, captioned ‘a little rusty, but he still (barely) won’.
However, Biden went on to work with him and met with national security advisers on Saturday, made a statement Saturday night about Trump’s acquittal in his impeachment trial and signed an executive order to reinstate a White House office over religious involvement on Sunday.
The compound’s history includes more than just golfing and winter sledding. It also hosted foreign dignitaries and was a meeting place for diplomacy. Giorgione says the relaxed atmosphere of the camp lends itself to relationship building.
“There is a certain sense of going to the camp unlike the White House, which is a little more formal, a little more oppressive as you would say, and certain presidents find a much better connection in the camp than in the White House. ,” he said.
Roosevelt received British Prime Minister Winston Churchill there in 1943 to lay the groundwork for the Normandy invasion, on the first visit of a foreign leader.
The camp became synonymous with feverish, last-ditch diplomatic negotiations after President Jimmy Carter invited Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat there 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 replicate that 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 ended without an agreement.
George W. Bush visited the camp regularly and used it to entertain a host of foreign leaders, as well as to withdraw the cabinet to outline his administration’s response to the September 11 attacks.
In 2012, Obama hosted the Group of Eight summit for world leaders there, after Occupy Wall Street protests ruled out his hometown of Chicago. World leaders stayed in the compound’s 12 huts and were able to spend their free time in the grounds.
Trump spent little time there and did not receive any foreign dignitaries. He once joked to a reporter, “Do you know how long you’d like it? About 30 minutes. “
But Giorgione said he expected that, with his appreciation for diplomacy, Biden would likely use the space to house foreign leaders after the coronavirus pandemic, which ruled out most in-person gatherings, is under control. He said that when foreign leaders descend on Camp David, it could be like a ‘grown-up sleepover’.
“Camping in the huts creates an atmosphere in which leaders are very close to each other. There is no large conference room with chandeliers and coffee service. This is a homey, rustic gathering, ”he said.
Participants “walk together on the paths, we go for a bike ride, we take a seat at a nice table in a small conference room.”
“It created the art of having to dive into each other’s personal space and find time to speak legitimately,” he said.