By Laura MacInnis
CAMP DAVID, Md., May 19 (Reuters) – Eight of the world’s
most powerful people spent Friday night in
the woods.
In a sort of VIP sleepover, G8 leaders bedded down in rustic
cabins in rural Maryland, where the U.S. presidential retreat
known as Camp David is hosting by far the largest international
summit in its 70-year history.
President Barack Obama welcomed his peers from Britain,
France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and Canada to the verdant
compound on Friday evening, describing the weather as “perfect”
with clear skies visible through tall oak and poplar trees.
The G8 summit was first set to be held in Chicago, where
Obama is hosting a Sunday-Monday NATO summit, but he moved them
to the retreat 60 miles (96 km) north of Washington to give the
talks a more informal flavor.
“The thinking was that people would enjoy being in a more
casual backdrop,” Obama told reporters in March after the White
House announced the change of venue, widely seen as a way to
reduce exposure to potential protests in Chicago.
Camp David, which opened in 1942, has traditionally been a
place for U.S. presidents to relax away from the bustle of the
White House, and to host foreign dignitaries, typically one at a
time.
Its two prior international summits included only a pair of
visiting leaders at once: Bill Clinton’s peace talks with
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority
Chairman Yasser Arafat in 2000, and the 1978 negotiations Jimmy
Carter hosted between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat yielding the historic Camp David
peace accords.
The White House said each of the G8 leaders would have their
own cabin on the Camp David grounds, but admitted they would be
of different sizes and possibly of lesser luxury than many prime
ministers and presidents are accustomed to.
“The allocation system of course is classified; I really
can’t go into that,” Tom Donilon, Obama’s top national security
aide, told reporters ahead of the summit.
Donilon twice used the word “adequate” to describe the
facilities where German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime
Minister David Cameron, French President Francois Hollande,
Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, Canadian Prime Minister
Stephen Harper, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda were to overnight.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and
European Council President Herman Van Rompuy also stayed at Camp
David for the summit that ends Saturday, and each leader could
bring in at least one aide.
The G8 meetings are taking place in the dining room of
Laurel Lodge, a dark green building surrounded by lush forest
where the leaders also ate together on Friday. The large cabin
serves as the facility’s business hub, with several conference
rooms and a small presidential office.
While Camp David is highly secure with modern communications
technology, its decor is somewhat dated. Recent photos released
by the White House have featured extensive wood paneling and
plaid and vividly patterned upholstered furniture.
Before Friday, Obama had not hosted any foreign leader at
Camp David and has spent less time there than his predecessor,
George W. Bush, an outdoorsman who often went to the Catoctin
Mountain Park getaway for the weekend to mountain bike.
Though Camp David boasts basketball and tennis courts, a
swimming pool, and a putting green, sandtraps and tees, Obama
has preferred to spend his weekends closer to home, golfing at
Andrews Air Force Base and shooting hoops with his daughters
Malia and Sasha at a government building near the White House.
Friday marked Obama’s 23rd visit to Camp David, and his
first time there since October, according to CBS White House
correspondent Mark Knoller who keeps extensive records of
presidential travel. At the same point in his presidency, Bush
had gone to Camp David 81 times.
(Editing by Warren Strobel and Eric Walsh)
