WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden spent his third week in office visiting the Pentagon, touring National Institutes of Health and working on the administration’s COVID-19 response.
He ended up beating one of his granddaughters at Mario Kart during his first presidential visit to Camp David, the historic retreat for American leaders.
This is what Camp David has traditionally offered presidents: a respite from Washington, where they can let go of their ties and relax with family. The resort located in the Maryland Mountains, just 60 miles from the capital, includes bowling to archery.
It has been used by all presidents since Franklin Delano Roosevelt first went there in 1943 as a personal hiding place, and has been the site of major diplomatic negotiations and political discussions throughout history, according to Michael Giorgione, who to serve as commander of Camp David for the 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), each president has used Camp David for a personal getaway, to get away from the clamor, the noise and the White House and really go to this exclusive secluded mountain. That is a purpose. And the other is to bring in world leaders, ”said Giorgione.
When Roosevelt first arrived, the rustic retreat was “a hiding place with little hot water and a brush that grew to the thresholds of windows,” former Associate Press White House reporter Dale Nelson wrote in his 1995 story: “The President is at Camp David.” Still, Roosevelt fantastically called it “Shangri-La,” the name of the utopian community in the popular 1933 novel “The Lost Horizon.”
When Dwight Eisenhower took over, he added a green and a new name: Camp David, in honor of his father and grandson.
Over the years, presidents made improvements to suit their tastes. Richard Nixon added a heated pool and George HW Bush installed a range of regulatory horseshoe. Barack Obama, known for his love of basketball, built a court.
The venue also has a cinema room, a skeet shooting range, horse riding and tennis courts.
“I leave my problems out the door,” Lady Bird Johnson, wife of President Lyndon Johnson, once said on the field.
Biden himself told reporters before leaving Washington for the venue that his main plans for the long weekend were to “stay with the family and do what we always do.” Although presidents usually take the Marine One helicopter for the short trip, time forced the president to fly to Hagerstown, Maryland, via Air Force One, before taking a caravan to camp.
Her granddaughter Naomi posted on her Instagram Saturday night a clip of Biden playing the video game, subtitling it, “a little rusty, but still won (barely).”
However, Biden worked with him, meeting with national security advisers on Saturday, issuing a statement on Trump’s acquittal at the dismissal trial Saturday night and signing an executive order to reinstate a U.S. office on Sunday. White House.
The history of the venue includes more than just golf games and winter sleds. It has also hosted foreign dignitaries and has been a meeting place for diplomacy. Giorgione says the relaxed atmosphere of the camp lends itself to building relationships.
“There’s a certain sense of going to camp unlike the White House, which is a little more formal, a little more cluttered if you will, and some presidents find a much better connection to the camp than to the White House., “He said.
Roosevelt hosted British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1943 to help lay the groundwork for the invasion of Normandy, on the first visit by a foreign leader.
The camp became synonymous with feverish and last-minute 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 replicate this diplomatic alchemy when he invited Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to Camp David for Middle East peace talks in 2000. After two weeks of negotiations, the summit ended. without agreement.
George W. Bush visited the camp frequently, using it to entertain a large number of foreign leaders, as well as for a retreat from the Cabinet to chart his government’s response to the 9/11 attacks.
In 2012, Obama hosted the group of eight summit for world leaders there, after Occupy Wall Street protests made his hometown of Chicago out of the question. World leaders stayed in the 12 booths on the grounds and could spend their free time mingling on the ground.
Trump spent little time there and did not host any foreign dignitaries. He once joked to a journalist, “Do you know how long you would like? For about 30 minutes. “
But Giorgione said he hoped Biden, with his recognition for diplomacy, would likely use the space to host foreign leaders after the coronavirus pandemic, which has prevented most face-to-face meetings, is under control. He said when foreign leaders come down to Camp David, it can be like an “adult dream.”
“Going camping in the huts creates an atmosphere where the leaders are very close. There is no large conference room with chandeliers and coffee service. It’s a rustic, home-grown meeting, ”he said.
Attendees “walk the trails together, let’s ride a bike, sit at a nice table in a small conference room.”
“He created this art of having to go down into everyone’s personal space and find time to speak legitimately,” he said.