L. Carl Brown, Foreign Affairs, September/October 2005
Book Description
The Truth About Camp David, by Clayton E. Swisher shatters that myth.
Based on the riveting, eyewitness accounts of more than 40 direct participants involved in the latest rounds of Arab-Israeli negotiations, including the Camp David 2000 summit, former federal investigator-turned-investigative journalist Clayton E. Swisher provides a compelling counter-narrative to the commonly accepted history. Swisher traces the source of the breakdown to President Clinton’s post-impeachment hardships and desire to repair his legacy, his hopeful alliance with Ehud Barak (and campaign to oust Netanyahu), and the collective demurral of his advisors to the supposed negotiating wisdom of an Israeli Prime Minister they knowingly followed into a pattern doomed to failure. Based on the perspectives of negotiators now speaking publicly for the first time, The Truth About Camp David invites the reader into new perspectives detailing the tragic inner workings of the Clinton Administration’s negotiating mayhem, their eleventh hour blunders and miscalculations, and their concluding decision to end the Oslo process with blame and disengagement.
The Truth About Camp David will reframe what may prove to be one of the greatest diplomatic failures in American history. It is not only a fascinating historical look at Middle East politics on the brink of disaster, but a revelatory portrait of how all-too-human American political considerations helped facilitate the present crisis.
