As I’m writing this week’s blog, I’m somewhere I’ve never been before. I’m sitting at a desk in a cabin at Camp David, the presidential retreat used by every president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It’s quite secluded, and the security upon entering the grounds rivals that upon entering the White House, and in some ways is even tighter. I had to surrender my cell phone and all other electronic communications gear to the Marines at the gatehouse. (I’m told I’ll get it back upon leaving.) I’m actually not sure if it’s 5 AM or 6 AM right now, because we turned back the clocks overnight for daylight savings time, I didn’t bring my watch, and was relying upon my iPhone for time, and now don’t have it.
Camp David has a truly amazing history. Shortly after Pearl Harbor, FDR was warned that he could no longer take weekend retreats on the presidential yacht, the USS Potomac, for fear that German U-boats might be able to slip into the river of the same name, and sink the Potomac, with the president on board. So Roosevelt ordered a search for a suitable location for a presidential retreat, with the following requirements: it had to be within a 2 hour drive of the White House, it had to be a cooler climate than muggy Washington in the summer, and it had to be secluded enough that the president’s safety could be ensured. Camp David, which was initially known as Shangri-La, fit the bill. President Eisenhower changed the name to camp David to honor his grandson, David Eisenhower, who later married Richard Nixon’s daughter.
The first visit by a foreign leader to Camp David was by Winston Churchill. He and Roosevelt met there to discuss the potential invasion of France (D-Day), to free Europe from the clutches of Hitler. Other notable meetings which took place here: Nikita Khrushchev with Eisenhower in 1959, Brezhnev and Nixon in 1973, and Gorbachev and George H.W. Bush in 1990. But the most famous meeting of foreign dignitaries at Camp David has to be the two week negotiations which took place between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egypt’s Anwar Sadat, with the assistance of President Jimmy Carter. It resulted in the historic peace agreement which has held to this day.
Camp David mostly consists of a number of cabins, and I’m staying at one known as Sycamore Cabin. There’s a guest book in the room noting everyone who has ever stayed in it, and the date they were here. Some notables who stayed in this cabin are: Henry Kissinger; Dick Cheney (before he was Vice President); George W. Bush, who is referred to as president’s son, so obviously before he was president; Alan Greenspan; Brett Kavanaugh, (before he was elevated to the US Supreme Court); Condaleeza Rice; and Carl Rove.
What I found particularly interesting, was how many of the people connected to Watergate stayed at this cabin. H.R. Haldeman, Nixon’s Chief of Staff, stayed in this cabin just about every other weekend in 1972, the year of the Watergate break-in. Other Watergate notables who stayed in Sycamore Cabin: John Ehrlichman, attorney general John Mitchell; Nixon’s press secretary Ron Ziegler; Maury Stans; Alexander Butterfield, who famously shocked the world when he disclosed that there was a taping system in the White House recording virtually all conversations (which was ultimately Nixon’s downfall); and Rosemary Wood, President Nixon’s secretary, who gained her 15 minutes of fame when she got blamed for accidentally erasing 18 minutes of tape at a critical time during the Watergate saga.
I had intended to cover in this week’s blog, the vote in the House authorizing the impeachment inquiry, which every Republican, including myself, voted against. It of course passed, with all Democrats except two voting for it. However, I see that I’ve taken your time this week talking about Camp David, and that was probably more interesting anyway. So I’ll save further discussion on impeachment until down the road (it’s not going anywhere after all.)
See you next week.