The Prisoners of Thurmont

For the Camp followers, nary a leak to plug

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 and started taking notes on how the Israelis were filming the Swedes filming...

So it 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 above the trees.

As far as newsbreaks went, everyone might just as well have stayed at home. One reason for the Camp David meetings was President Carter's hope of liberating the participants from the constraints of their own past rhetoric. That meant keeping them away from the press too. To prevent either side from stealing the show, top aides accompanying Sadat and-Begin agreed to refrain from leaking to the press until the talks ended.

The Egyptians and Israelis also agreed that White House Press Secretary Jody Powell would be the sole dispenser of information to journalists. Presiding over the single daily press briefing, Powell confined himself intentionally to what he called "rather innocent information" and even refused to acknowledge that negotiations were taking place; he would call them only "serious discussions." CBS's Robert Pierpoint apologized on the air: "We're doing our best with the material at hand, Walter, and maybe later the news will be better." NBC was reduced to opening one news broadcast with extensive closeup footage of a honey bee working over Camp David daisies.

There were other distractions in Thurmont besides the absence of news. The press center dispensed cheap booze (35-c- for a beer, 50-c- 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.

The 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 3 1/2 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 and Begin an hour before rival United Press International had a copy. A Baltimore Sun reporter filed the news that when Sadat prays toward Mecca, he is actually facing Baltimore. And one Israeli correspondent, lacking any other sign of progress, timed Carter's and Begin's initial embrace (nine seconds). Sadat got a longer hug (13 seconds) from Carter, he reported, but Begin's was more "intense." .

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