Celebrates its 75th anniversary this year has played a vital role in American History of the past century inviting president s and International Leaders alike to converge, converse and most importantly relax. Located deep in the woods of marylands mountains its the ultimate behind the scenes any of our imagination. We are thrilled this evening to be joined by rear admiral Michael Giorgione who served 29 years on active duty in the us may be retiring in 2010. Key served as the commander cant david for president s bill clinton and george w. Bush working under the White House Military Office the organization responsible for air force one, marine one and military aid. His new book inside cant david is the first insider account of camp david and available for purchase and signing following his presentation. Please join me in welcoming rear admiral Michael Giorgione. [applause]. Thank you. Wonderful treat to be here at the smithsonian. First bank marion rosenberg. Please think laura rosenberg. [applause]. I have family and guests here tonight i went to introduce so you understand whos coming here to be with me. First, my parents mom and dad, mary lou and tony. My wonderful sister, luanne. My cousins cousin, john and his friend. Eventually, my nephew matt and amanda are coming. Heather smith. Bridger if you read the book you know about heather because she is in there twice. She was a junior officer at camp david with me and women friends and colleagues ever since, so thank you for being here with her daughter claire. One of my old classmates and david frank is here in the crowd tonight. One of my business colleagues, robert, president of absorbed national gas products in the back. Michael, thank you for being here. An organization of varying involved with we have our president steve hamer, captain retired. We have barb whitton and lisa. We have captain retired treece mustard and her husband lloyd. Thank you for being here, folks. Before we get into it but me give you insights about writing a book that i realized the hard way. When you are a consultant living on your own everyone is suspicious of what you do for a living. One day when you tell them you are writing a book, you get a very discerning seconds to look. My, what you up to. On writing a book, a what, my ebook oh, has michelle your coup is michelle . Michelle is my wife. She would normally be with me on this trip, but shes in california where we live dealing with chronic back pain. Im sorry she couldnt be here. As you get comfortable telling people you are writing a book they look you differently. They expect to to wear a tweed jacket. They send you pipes for christmas gifts, i mean, people once you get confident in writing a book, you kind of look everything as a book. In taking that hammer a nail approach, funny story. My wife says do you want to go see the movie lady bird. I did not even question it and said lets go. We go to that theater and we are watching lady bird and about 30 seconds in im fumbling in my pocket she said what he doing i said nothing, what he doing. Are we in the right theater. Wise this story opening in sacramento. The johnsons were never in sacramento and she said idiot this is not about Lady Bird Johnson and i said thats why i came. I thought it was president s and politics, not the case. So i started treating everything like a nail and i was a hammer. You get used to it. Its out there in the Public Domain and its been a great honor not only to serve our navy and our nation but to come before you tonight and talk about this story. It began in 19 years ago. In the navy, camp david is a navy command and i will explain that history in a few minutes. In the navy command on becoming the Commanding Officer we have a chain of command ceremony. That morning my wife michelle and her two daughters briand and ryan ages seven and forgive me this turtle with this handwritten note. Your daddy, we want you to write stories about camp david and the present in this journal works someday our children will be able to read them. Love you. 19 years ago i thought thats cute, maybe i will write something down and i did work actually, every visit when president clinton and president bush i would write down what happened that we can. Never thought i would do anything with it. This is the day they handed me that journal inside the historic holly cabin turk first rule about speaking in public is to know your audience. Other than heather and my family who has been to camp david . Fascinating. Is some of you i know from the navy and you were there for your job. Almost invariably there is someone in the audience that has been there or known someone that served their. You can fact check me as we go. They give me this book and journal and they keep notes and when i seriously got interested in writing a book about two years ago the thing that really iced it was this event. This is all living Commanding Officers that could make the trip in november, 2016. This is a Reunion Group hosted by the current camp david commander under the obama administration. Camp was a bit more open. We could use it for gas and got permission to have a reunion of master chiefs. Here we are altogether. The gentleman to my left in the picture, your rights, gray hair, blue shirt is 91 years old and lives in coronado, california. I found him in 1998, when i was called to go for my interview he tell me about camp david. He kind of became my mentor about what its all about. I will talk about chuck and his experiences with the kennedys and the johnsons later. When i heard all of the ladies and gentlemen talking about camp and the fact that they had written stories over their time there i thought this is kind of meant to be. I had already gone down the road with the publisher, but what iced it for me was knowing i would interview every single one of them and include their stories. Its not just my stories, but the stories and revelations and insights of these fine naval officers that have served there as well. Im going to take three approaches, talk about the history of camp david, what it is, whites navy. Talk about chapter six entitled the lonely century. A bit about the loneliness or command and being in charge of something and make a parallel from being a Commanding Officer of the facility and what it must be like to be a president s. Share some photos and stories about my time during the years 1999 and 2001 with both president clinton president bush. Of the history and this is an aerial photo of camp david off a public website. These are public photos. Nothing secret here. You are looking down on aspen, the president s lodged. President roosevelt, 1942, love going out on the floating white house which was the president ial you got me and find navy sailors the photo on the right is the president ial yacht today, a Public Museum in the port of oakland, california. He loves going out and getting away from the white house and during the war years when it was a good idea to go out on the water due to a real threat spicy he asked staff to find a place where i can go to get away especially in the summer from the heat and humidity to deal with miasma and a place where i can go near by the white house that i can use as my retreats. Recall in the late 30s after the Hoover Administration roosevelts new deal bringing the country back to work he created part of the new deal with wpa, Works Progress administration. Part of that was civilian conservation corps. Much of their work was putting 18 to make 35year old men back to work building parks, public roads, demonstration areas around the country plus putting money in reserves into the federal banking system. One of the conservation corps camps they built with the catoctin road creation zero area north of frederick of 270 fus 15. The staff found three locations in a nearby area and this was one of them. Roosevelt visited july, 1942, was enamored with it saw it could support him during the summer turk wasnt too winterized at this point and with some of the original cabins in place today remodeled over the years he coined the term my shangrila. Where does that term come from . It was quoting the novel lost her eyes and there is a utopian society of intrigue and get away and most people didnt know didnt get around easily in the 40s. Didnt have the internet and all the access tools today. He first visited in july, 1942. He continued to go throughout the summer months basically by himself, guess and principally with Winston Churchill on two occasions. The retreat today, though, is known as camp david and its a Navy Facility why . Its a Navy Facility because when roosevelt took the sailors off the president ial yacht and they went with him to be the stewards and caretakers and he got marines from washington dc to guard it, thats where the u. S. Navy, department of navy kind of inherited it. About command reports to the White House Military Office in the east wing of the white house. They support the president moving him around the world including air force one, marine one, helicopter squadron, camp david, white house communication agency, white house transportation agency, white house medical unit , special programs etc. Etc. These are the uniformed personnel civilian men and women, over 2000 that support the president s behindthescenes moving him around the world wherever he goes and whoever he engages with. The navy has camp david, appropriate a budget line in the u. S. Navy appropriation to find and maintain camp david. We know it as camp because why . Succeeding president roosevelt was president truman, not greatly enamored with camp david. Preferred to go to key west, florida. His successor, president eisenhower came in and thought it was a bit pretentious and thought of closing it like some other president s after him, but became enamored with it again which is an early trend with many president s with the facility and decided maybe there is utility here even though i have my farm in gettysburg, pennsylvania. He said i dont like the name and i dont like these funny name for the cam man calvin so he renamed it camp david after his grandson who is 12 years old in this vote up your David Eisenhower today is about 70 years old and recently retired as the history profession. I was introduced in rotary, san diego, a few weeks ago was a lawyer and had David Eisenhower as a ta when he was in graduate school. You never know who is sitting in the audience. The other thing eisenhower did was rename that happens and he took mimi eisenhowers home state of colorado and named the president ial lodge aspen as it is today. Virtually every building structured on the camp had a name. This is cedar where the Commanding Officer lives this is where i lived. This is where chuck lived back in the kennedy days. Its the same structure. Its been remodeled, added onto, but this is where the ceo lives. You are the only family inside the camp except on the weekends. You are the only family with two daughters seven and four inside the camp and maybe you have guests on the weekend. Play dates are interesting, but they can be difficult with security protocol date gate and access road and Everything Else you can cannot do. One of those early challenges. The lonely century, chapter six, one of my favorite in the book talking about the loneliness of command. Any time any of you i am sure have been charged in something, a committee, a club, a team, your business and sometimes the hard decisions you have to make an eyelid to what the president still within what they had to do. Upper left is commander bob bruni at the time a co going to inspection, about 1800 feet up elevation. Im going to walk you through president s using it what they got out of camp david. I see two purposes, when to get away and rest and relax on weekends and also a place to take administration or International Leaders to work diplomacy. Pretty much most president s figure out a nice balance. President obama in the living room of aspen with the picture window behind him. President carter on the iconic along the. He had a great fear of fire. President nixon looking out the same window that president obama was in front of. Said nixon never wore anything but a coat and tie at camp david. You are supposed to relax their. Not his style. Its interesting to read about his relationship with his staff. Its in the book about how he fired him with one handshake. The only time he ever shook their hand and sent them off their way, interesting use of the camp and a very lonely century, if you will. President bush talking on the phone and the president s office. On the right, pulitzer prizewinning photo from april, 1961. Who remembers what was going on and may be what photo is about . A bay of pigs, very good. Folks, today like laurens introduction i find this incredibly humble, may be a desperate move, but certainly had in hand moved that the young upstart democratic president , president kennedy called the older established military retired general dwight David Eisenhower to camp david, a place he knew better than kennedy did at this point and pretty much says what did i do wrong. And eisenhower said i told you so. I told you we planned this and i told you had executed and you messed it up and this is what happens. Sink about this. One politician today anywhere would call in someone, one of predecessor and two opposite party and say how do you help me. Very humbling time, i think. A very classy move on both of their parts. Eisenhower goes there for the day and pulitzer prizewinning photo is taken. President roosevelt in aspen, that stone hearth is still there took its a lot cleaner today. Thats the stone fireplace inside aspen. President truman driving himself out of aspen, one of the few him 10 times he went there. President churchill earlier excuse me, president roosevelt with Winston Churchill. They were fishing in a nearby creek outside of camp david smoking cigars, probably having whiskey and eight shroud of cigar dust keeping the mosquitoes away talking about the war and what us in the Great Britain need to do important work getting done here. President eisenhower with his Vice President , richard nixon. More lonely times, president johnson with the investor of South Vietnam undoubtedly talking about the vietnam war and how to either continue or end it. Another president excuse a comment to the right president nixon, same log, same fish pond in the book theres a story about the blue lincoln continental, the car that nixon gives to him and he takes and gets in the drivers seat and motions next and to in the passenger seat and off they go down the hills almost to racket in the fence line. No security around them and great peril took two superpowers at the time almost wiped out inside a chainlink fence. Little human moments is what camp david is all about, a lot of highs and lows even though you have a saying we are in the world of the president s, not of their world. We see them like people when you say hello and talk about things whatever, but you are certainly not of their world. You have to remember that. Human things happen all the time. President carter, another president thought about closing camp david thought it was not necessary that it was a waste. Famous for the peace accords with onboard sadat from israel. President reagan, one of the few times he brought a world leader here. Principally, he and the first lady coming nancy, went to their almost exclusively by themselves on the weekend. He is visited over 500 times, the most of any president s and it truly was for the reagans a place to get away from the white house, the scrutiny, the prey press. Is a place to go to recharge themselves and do the nation business. President clinton. President bush talking from the cabin hawley. The memoirs in the background of president bush on the wall are handwritten notes that president carter sent inviting them to holly to negotiate the camp david peace accord. President reagan since he went so often he started his saturday radio dresses from camp david. President obama in his office. Then, we see a continued for the use of diplomacy g8 summit in 2012 was supposed be held in chicago. As you recall we had a lot of riots and demonstrations, top 1 had a reserve Bank Demonstration etc. They said lets move it to camp david. There are some Great Stories about welcoming these World Leaders to camp for a weekend and it dealing with accommodating the personalities and idiosyncrasies and learning quickly what they want their cabin, what are they dont want and all those behindthescenes stories that are wonderful to share. Bottom left is president bush with whats called now that council of war after the 911 attacks, assembling his staff that camp david to talk about americas response to the attacks. Far right is president trumps last visit to camp david. Although, he has only been there five times, hes taken his staff and cabinet there three or four of the five times. I dont know that it will be his preferred place to rest and relax, but i see may be a more convenient use with staff and has not brought an International Leader they are, but i think there is great value for that. The lighter moments, the fords walking with susan their dog liberty. The reagans, almost always went horseback riding weather permitted when they went to camp david. Dot am left president George Hw Bush. This incident is about horseshoes. The bushes loved or shoes. The bushes love any recreational sport or gain and they were walking the grounds near aspen and theres a regulation horseshoe pits and bush tells gorbachev what it is. Org chart doesnt know what it is and throws a horse shoe and gets a ringer, first time. So seizing the moment, staff take the horseshoe, make a plaque and give it to the president that night to get to Mikael Gorbachev had dinner. Its these little personal moments that cant date camp david is about