Word: thurmont
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While Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin were conferring with Jimmy Carter at Camp David, a vignette that might have been lifted from Evelyn Waugh's Scoop was being played out six miles away in the town of Thurmont, Md. (pop. 2,400). Just as a Newsweek reporter sat down to interview ABC White House Correspondent Sam Donaldson about his adventures covering the summit, a Swedish television crew glided up to film the exchange. Within seconds, an Israeli TV unit began filming the Swedes filming the Newsweek reporter interviewing ABC's Donaldson. Then two Egyptian journalists sidled over...
...went all week. Assembled from around the world to cover one of the year's biggest stories, more than 300 reporters, editors, network anchors, producers and technicians found themselves talking to one another in Thurmont's Edward C. Creeger Jr. American Legion Post No. 168, where a press center had been set up. Or they prowled the woods and roads near the gates of Camp David amid a growing armada of sound trucks. Poking through the greenery like the head of a dinosaur, the occasional giant cherry picker, hired at great expense by TV networks, hoisted transmitting antennas...
There were other distractions in Thurmont besides the absence of news. The press center dispensed cheap booze (35? for a beer, 50? for hard stuff). Idle journalists could walk the length of Thurmont's main street in about seven minutes or gawk at ABC's Barbara Walters and Anchor Frank Reynolds as they tried to negotiate the town's narrow streets in their matching chauffeur-driven Fleetwood limousines...
...news blackout will surely evaporate by the time talks conclude, as each party competes to broadcast its version of the proceedings. Until then, the prisoners of Thurmont will have to function largely without leaks, a handicap that often results in minor disaster and desperate attempts at onescoopmanship. The A.P. reported, erroneously, that Carter and Begin had talked for 3½ hours Tuesday night and would eat lunch with Sadat on Wednesday (in fact, the Tuesday meeting lasted only two hours and Wednesday's luncheon did not take place). A.P. recovered by getting hold of a pool photo of Sadat...
...arrivals of the participants and some minor activities. The leaders are thus spared any barrage of questions. By general agreement, White House Press Secretary Jody Powell will handle the daily briefings, either at the White House or at the makeshift press center inside an American Legion hall in Thurmont, Md., the town closest to Camp David. But on some issues he may be joined by his Egyptian and Israeli counterparts...