Mid-September 1978. The world's eyes were on Camp David where the Carter/Begin/Sadat Middle East Summit was taking place.

And taking place, and taking place ...

For this meeting was sending out no progress reports. Day after long day without news, driving the press folk wild with frustration and boredom.

Top journalists camped out in Thurmont 's American Legion. Israeli press in one corner of the big hall, Egyptian press crowded into another. The U.S. press scattered throughout, with world-wide press jammed into a room already overflowing with typing tables, typewriters and telephones -- wires taped down like spider webs.

Every day Jody Powell, President Carter's press secretary, came down the mountain from Camp David with no news. The participants had agreed on absolute secrecy until they could announce an agreement.

I was credentialed by the White House to cover the Summit for this newspaper, finding "color" when there was no hard news. For example, feuding co-evening-news-anchors Barbara Walters and Frank Reynolds arrived every day in matching gray limousines. Outside the Legion dozens of broadcasting vans sprouted antennas skyward. (New information was scarce indeed.)

One day into the second week Catoctin High School journalism students gingerly edged inside the Legion door. I spoke to them: Stacey Brown, editor of the school paper, had gotten permission for Bill Cary, Steve Schumacher, Jim Hamrick, Bob Gray and herself to watch Jody Powell's press conference. It wasn't time yet, so I asked Robert Pierpoint, a familiar TV face, to talk to the students. He agreed at once, enlightening the kids on what's it like to cover presidents for 16 years, explaining the extreme secrecy as "a unique situation when there's no real access to the participants or their advisers."

Two more correspondents generously shared their views. Then I asked Helen Thomas, distinguished White House correspondent. She put the conference into historical perspective, pointing out this was an event of such significance that it would be recorded in history books -- and they would recall proudly they were here.

By then everyone knew what we were doing. Even Walter Cronkite agreed to leave his protected corner and come meet the kids, who'd been craning their necks to spot him.

And that gentleman we all knew spoke to the young people as though he'd been one of them only yesterday. Telling of when he'd been editor of his high school paper in Houston, he chatted about his early days in journalism, seemingly oblivious to photographers jockeying on all sides.

Jody Powell arrived, the lights went up, and everyone paid attention, trying to glean anything. As young Bob Gray observed, "The press secretary must be gifted with the ability to say a lot but reveal nothing. It's his job, and he did it well."

Finally Sam Donaldson, ABC's White House reporter, invited the kids to pull up chairs and he'd tell them what they'd just seen. He described in a nutshell the problems in the Middle East, the power positions of the principals, and how their positions back home would be affected by the outcome here.

What did I learn? Ask ... and it shall be given. These stellar folks couldn't have been more generous.

And ... I still have a photo of Walter Cronkite reading my subsequent article in The Frederick News-Post!

annblove@comcast.net