Word: thurmont
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...Welcome to the daily press blackout." That's how State Department spokesman Richard Boucher began one of his non-briefings to the dwindling press corps in Thurmont, Md., trying to "cover" the Middle East peace talks. Although there were a fair amount of doings outside the summit - some speechifying by President Clinton, some high drama involving the arrival of semi-official Palestinians and Israelis seeking entrance to Camp David - info security remained remarkably tight...
...Thurmont, Md. - Here at the press filing center for the Camp David II Mideast peace talks, a TV reporter was lamenting to a White House press officer: "I've got to go on the air soon and I have nothing to report." The reaction of this news blackout enforcer: "Yesss...
...news in the face of a conspiracy of silence among American, Israeli and Palestinian officials. Except for a carefully orchestrated - and tightly controlled - photo op on Day 1, all the reporters have been kept off the secluded grounds of Camp David. Most are eight miles away at the Thurmont Elementary School, where White House spokesman Joe Lockhart takes the podium once or twice a day to release no information of substance, except that everyone's working hard and peace is difficult. His most recent appearance included this Delphic pronouncement: "It means something to us, but I'm not going...
...play and no work: The small contingent of "pool" reporters posted at a National Park Service recreation center close by the Camp got a basketball to help pass the long dead hours. The main group back at the elementary school, having interviewed all the Thurmont townsfolk, have started to interview one another. Some, out of boredom or looking for ledes, have started to read the inspirational homilies that teachers have posted for their students in the halls and above the blackboards. A favorite: "Success comes in cans, not in cannots." Come to think...
...successful news blackout was that the Egyptians and Israelis agreed to allow Jody Powell to serve as the sole official outlet of information #151;surely one of the toughest assignments ever handed a White House press secretary. In his daily meetings with reporters inside the American Legion post at Thurmont, Md., six miles from Camp David, Powell kept his statements concise and skillfully avoided conveying anything substantive. He deflected questions about concessions on the part of Israel or Egypt by noting diplomatically: "There's been flexibility shown on both sides." To ensure that this modest observation did not unduly raise...