[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.

                          ____________________