[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 61 (Monday, May 7, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4440-S4442]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE PROPOSED WORLD WAR II MEMORIAL
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed
in the Record a news article by Benjamin Forgey from the Washington
Post dated May 5, 2001, about the World War II memorial that is
proposed to be built on The Mall between the Washington Monument and
the Lincoln Memorial.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[[Page S4441]]
[From the Washington Post, May 5, 2001]
An Overdue Honor for WWII Veterans Once Again Is Unjustly in the Line
of Fire
(By Benjamin Forgey)
Veterans of World War II ought to be fighting mad right
about now.
Bad luck and a bad case of nerves on the part of a federal
agency may delay the World War II Memorial on the Mall--
possibly for years. This, after 22 public hearings, four
approving congressional laws and six years of give-and-take
had produced a fine, ready-to-build design.
In an extraordinary vote Thursday, the National Capital
Planning Commission put itself in a position to reverse all
of its previous approvals of the memorial--of the prominent
site between the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial,
the design concept that embraces the site and the details of
the design.
In essence, the commission is proposing to subject the
folks who sponsored the memorial and raised more than $100
million to a bureaucratic form of double jeopardy. The site
has been dedicated and millions of dollars have been spent to
prepare the approved design. In addition to dealing with a
pending lawsuit brought by steadfast opponents, the American
Battle Monuments Commission, the memorial's official
guardian, must now gird itself to go through the contentious
process another time.
This could be a mere formality, if after hearing a day of
pro and con pubic testimony at a special session on June 13
the commission simply votes, in another special session the
next day, to reapprove its prior approvals. However, so clear
and easy a solution seems highly unlikely. Four of the 12
commission members, including Chairman Richard Friedman, are
new since the agency took its last vote on the memorial five
months ago. (One of the seats is currently vacant.)
More likely, the commission will ask for changes in the
design. Even if the alterations are limited, it could take,
say, 12 months to get them through the reviewing process
again. Law requires approval of any changes not only by the
planning commission but also by the Commission of Fine Arts
and the secretary of the interior--usually a difficult, time-
consuming process.
In a year, more than 400,000 aging World War II veterans
will die.
Then there is the possibility that the commission will
reverse itself completely by rejecting the design concept and
the site, which was sanctioned by both commissions five years
ago after a thorough consideration of alternative locations.
If this happens, selecting another site, designing a new
memorial and getting the necessary approvals could take five
years or more.
In five years, more than 2 million World War II veterans
will die.
If this seems as preposterously unfair to you as it does to
me, we are in the same club as Tom Hanks, who says as much on
those touching it's-about-time television spots as spokesman
for the national memorial. Such delays are unconscionable.
The veterans--and, in fact, the entire World War II
generation--deserve dignified commemoration while some are
still alive to hold their heads high.
This is particularly so in view of the time and talent
already spent in quest of a fitting location and design for
the memorial. I do not mind saying this again: The site could
not be better--on the central axis of the Mall at the eastern
end of the Reflecting Pool, with the Lincoln Memorial to the
west and, to the east, the Washington Monument and the
Capitol. Alone among events of the 20th century, World War II
deserves commemoration on this symbolic holy ground of the
American democracy.
The genius of the design by Friedrich St. Florian, the
Austrian-born Rhode Island architect who six years ago won
the national design competition for the memorial, is how
splendidly it fits the contours of this impressive site.
Taking its primary cues from circular ends of the existing
Rainbow Pool and the cupping rows of elm trees that frame the
great vista, the memorial honors its honorific place on the
Mall.
But it is worth noting that St. Florian's design did not do
so at the beginning. In response to the overblown requests of
the Battle Monuments Commission--asking for a museum-size
undergrown exhibition space, among other things--the first
design was impressive, but predictably overblown. It got a
rough going-over from both reviewing commissions and,
gradually, was whittled down and fitted elegantly into the
landscape.
All of this patient, productive back-and-forth process may
now prove to have been useless. In part, the fact that the
commission is even considering reversing itself is due to a
mere technicality--or just really bad luck.
Three of the board's five previous approvals of various
facets of the memorial have been called into question because
former chairman Harvey Gantt continued to work after his term
officially had expired, awaiting a replacement. This is a
common administrative practice and usually is covered
explicitly in legislation. Yet somehow, back in the 1970s,
that language was dropped when the planning commission's
authorizing law was rewritten, and nobody noticed until now.
This seems a thin excuse for revisiting even the
``questionable'' votes--covering preliminary and final
memorial plans. It offers no pretext at all for reviewing the
commission's crucial, positive votes taken before Gantt's
term expired--on the design concept (its style, philosophy
and general configuration) and the site. But after Thursday's
vote, that is where we could be headed.
A series of questions come immediately to mind. Was
Thursday's vote wise? Was it even necessary? Should not some
other body--the Justice Department, Congress--decide on the
legality, or lack of it, of the previous chairman's votes
before anything else is done? Then, what about all the other
issues the commission decided during Gantt's interregnum--for
instance, the controversial Washington Convention Center?
Of course, something good can result from the new hearings
in June, as well as the ``balanced'' panel of architects,
urban designers and landscape architects the commission seeks
to convene later this month. (May 23 is the tentative date.)
There is a lot to be said, after all, for hearing all sides
of a story, even if the arguments are the same ones we've
been listening to for years.
So far, the site and the design have proved strong enough
to withstand hostile criticism--and probably this will happen
again. The memorial is not misplaced, as its opponents
contend, and most fair observers can see this. It does not
close off the Mall, as critics have said. Rather, it adds
something important to the vista. It is not Nazi
architecture--the most hateful of the attacks--but, like much
else in Washington, it is part of a 2,000-year-old tradition
of classical architecture.
It is not a perfect design, to be sure, but changes, if
any, should be considered very, very tenderly. As in all very
good designs, each part is intimately related to the others.
You cannot just rip a hole in the memorial to ``open the
Mall,'' for instance, without affecting the delicate, finely
wrought balance of the whole.
But the special reason to proceed with caution here is the
human costs of further delay. Like the movement to build
Civil War memorials throughout the North and South in the
late 19th and early 20th centuries, the impetus to construct
a national World War II memorial gained strength as the
wartime generation began to disappear.
The Veterans Administration provides these sobering
statistics. Of the 16 million American men and women who
served in uniform during World War II, about 5 million are
alive today. In 2004--the earliest date the Mall memorial
could be dedicated if everything proceeded smoothly--3.8
million veterans will be left. For every year after that--
well, you do the math.
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I recall when Tom Brokaw wrote his book,
``The Greatest Generation,'' I picked it up in an airport and began
reading and marveled once again at the dedication those young men, and
some young women, in the 1940s, expressed to this country. They
dedicated their lives to beating the fascism and nazism exhibited by
Adolf Hitler. They kept the free world free. Many paid for it with the
ultimate sacrifice--their lives.
It has been proposed for some long while to build a memorial on The
Mall of the U.S. Capital to those World War II veterans. That World War
II memorial has been in the planning stages forever, and the National
Capital Planning Commission is proposing to reverse previous approvals
of the memorial and once again delay construction of this memorial.
The people who sponsored this memorial have raised more than $100
million from private sources. The site has been dedicated. In addition
to dealing with the pending lawsuit by opponents, they must now--these
folks who have worked on this for so long--gird themselves to go
through the contentious battle one more time.
This year, more than 400,000 aging World War II veterans will die.
Sixteen million American men--mostly men--and some women, served in
uniform during World War II. Of those 16 million, about 5 million are
now alive.
In 2004, which is the earliest date the World War II memorial could
be dedicated if everything proceeded smoothly, about 3.8 million
veterans of that was will be left. As the article suggests, do the
math. We need to move aggressively to see that the lasting contribution
these men and women made for their country is recognized by building
that World War II memorial.
I have told my colleagues previously, of a discussion I had with a
member of the European Parliament about 2 years ago, in which we were
discussing some differences between the United States and the
Europeans. He stopped me at one point and said, ``Mr. Senator, I want
you to understand something about how I feel about your country.'' He
said, ``In 1944, I was 14 years old and standing on a street corner in
Paris, France, when the U.S. Liberation Army marched into Paris,
France, and freed my country from the Nazis.'' He said, ``A young black
American soldier reached out his hand and gave that 14-year-old boy an
apple. I will go to my grave remembering that moment. We
[[Page S4442]]
hadn't had much fruit under the nazi occupation for a long while. But I
will remember that moment that young soldier handed me an apple.'' He
said, ``You should understand what your country means to me, to us, to
my country.''
I remember, again, the sacrifice that was made by so many Americans
in World War II, the sacrifice made by what Tom Brokaw calls,
appropriately, the ``greatest generation.''
It seems to me appropriate that we ask those involved in the planning
of this memorial, who are once again trying to evaluate exactly the
conditions under which it is built, to allow this to go forward, allow
this for the people who have spent the time, planned this memorial, and
raised the money to make this happen for the World War II veterans. We
owe our veterans that, and we don't owe them further delay. Let's not
have further delay. Let's get the memorial built.
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