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Golf carts collided, not the delegates |
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July 16, 2000
THURMONT, Maryland (AP) - The issues are intractable, says the Camp David summit spokesman, but there is also time for Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to ride a bicycle or get behind the wheel of a golf cart. But not all the sporting types may be up to it. White House spokesman Joe Lockhart disclosed Friday that two carts had collided. He called it "a fender-bender." But lest any of the news-hungry reporters conclude there had been a diplomatic incident, Lockhart said the two drivers were from the same delegation. Diplomatically, he did not identify the delegation. --- News flash from the Middle East peace talks: Flag flap involving America's Old Glory. With little news about the talks seeping out of the secluded Camp David presidential retreat, people are chattering about the State Department's decision to remove two 8-inch-by-14-inch (24 centimeter by 42 centimeters) U.S. flags from classrooms at Thurmont Elementary School being used by the Arab and Israeli press corps. The flags were put back up, but not before Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, a Republican, received about 100 complaint calls in his district office in nearby Frederick. Bartlett drove to Thurmont on Friday, raised an American flag on the school's flagpole and instructed an aide to return daily to put it up and lower it. (He took it down Friday when it began to rain.) Townspeople and businesses began flying about 50 or so flags and motorists drove by the school displaying them on antennae. "This has incensed our people. It has incensed me," said Bartlett. "How in the devil can these flags be detrimental to the prosecution of these negotiations? These people are coming to America. They shouldn't be surprised that there American flags here." A State Department official said it's a "no-flag summit," meaning no delegation displays its emblem in official meetings. The two flags were removed so the Israeli and Palestinian delegations wouldn't think the Americans were breaking the no-flag rule, he said. "We did it to avoid a problem, not create one," he said. Later in the day, White House press secretary Joe Lockhart announced: "We have put the flags back up." --- Trying to get away from it all? Camping at Catoctin Mountain Park, home of the Camp David presidential retreat and site of the Middle East peace talks, probably isn't the place. Helicopter traffic, barricaded hiking trails, woods bristling with federal agents and confinement to your cabin complex. It's not what Chipper Whalen envisioned when she booked the Misty Mountain cabins at Catoctin Mountain Park for a four-night youth outing. The 100 Mormon girls and 30 adults from the Annandale, Virginia, area had to reroute their hikes and endure hourly drive-throughs by federal agents alert to every teen-age shriek. But there was a trade-off. Some of the girls got souvenir candy boxes bearing the White House seal from a food delivery van, and all slept well. "We've never felt so safe and secure," Whalen said Friday. Most of the 700,000 annual visitors to the 5,770-acre park about 70 miles or so north or Washington, probably don't know the presidential retreat is there, Superintendent Mel Poole said. Ask, and you will be told Camp David is inside the park - but not exactly where. During the summit, one-third of the park's hiking trails and a quarter of its roadways are closed. Of three camping groups at the park this past week, the most seriously affected were the 120 fifth- and sixth-graders from Washington attending the Camp Round Meadow nature and computer camp. The cluster of modern buildings includes a gymnasium being used as a staging area for some of the White House press corps. Between that surprise and the trail closures, counselors spent Monday night brainstorming until the wee hours on alternate activities. But the children didn't seem to mind. Some were thrilled by the Marines and motorcades. "The kids felt connected to this historical event," said camp coordinator La'Mont Geddis. "They saw that something was going on that was bigger than them, and they felt a part of it. " ---
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