Eisenhower Memorial Controversy
Please see Susan's brother David Eisenhower's statement and her father John Eisenhower's letter on the matter.
What I Said About the Eisenhower Memorial Design
Since the March 20th hearing on “The Proposed Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial,” Philip Kennicott and The Washington Post’s editorial page have repeatedly mischaracterized my testimony before the U.S. House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands.
In response to these inaccuracies, I submitted a letter to the editor which the Post published on April 12, 2012.
Eisenhower Family Statement on EMC Announcement
In response to an announcement by the Eisenhower Memorial Commission on March 26, outlining their “total and unqualified” support of Frank Gehry’s design for the Eisenhower Memorial, the Eisenhower family had this to say:
“The Eisenhower family will not be available for comment on the Eisenhower Memorial Commission’s announcement today until we have had the opportunity to confer among ourselves.”
For the latest on this developing story, listen to Susan Eisenhower on WAMU’s Kojo Nnamdi Show on March 29, 2011.
Next Steps on the Eisenhower Memorial
The news media has been full of the testimony from Tuesday’s hearing on “The Proposed Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial” before the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands.
As a family, we were most gratified that we were able to participate in an open and frank exchange of views about the concept, design and feasibility of the proposed Eisenhower Memorial plan. I attach my full testimony and a link to the C-Span coverage of Tuesday’s hearing.
Since then, many people have asked us “what’s next?” While there is considerable speculation about whether or not we will be meeting again with Mr. Frank Gehry and Gehry Partners, this is actually the responsibility of the Eisenhower Memorial Commission and its staff. Mr. Gehry’s client is the Eisenhower Memorial Commission (EMC) – not the Eisenhower family. We have offered our opinions and stated our concerns in a most forthright manner, not only to EMC Commissioners and staff but also to Congress and the various approval authorities. We met with Mr. Gehry in December 2011 and briefed him then on our views. The next steps are now up to them. We, of course, will remain available to them should a new design be forthcoming or if they decide to take a new track all together. From what we have heard, the EMC appears to favor going forward with its current plans.
We wish to take this opportunity to reiterate our respect and appreciation for Mr. Gehry’s hard work and the commitment he has brought to his task. We have always known that it has been his intention to design a fitting memorial to Dwight Eisenhower and one that is acceptable to our family. He has been gracious throughout this process and open to our input. It is now up to the Eisenhower Memorial Commission to determine how to proceed.
The following testimony was given by Susan Eisenhower before the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources at a hearing titled “The Proposed Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial” on March 20, 2012:
The U.S. House Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands
Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Members:
I would like to thank you, on behalf of the Eisenhower family, for convening this hearing on the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial. Such hearings play a vital role in the memorialization process, and we thank you for your leadership in addressing the public interest.
While some people may see little value in holding Congressional hearings on the current memorial design, all of us will benefit from a candid exchange of views. We, as a family, are committed to seeing that the building of a memorial to Dwight Eisenhower is done in an open, democratic and transparent way. This is what Ike would have wanted. He believed that public engagement and support is a crucial element in assuring any successful process and in meeting any collective objective.
Let me also say that my family is most grateful to the Eisenhower Memorial Commission, the General Services Administration and the National Park Service—as well as Mr. Frank Gehry, for the efforts they have made in bringing the memorial to this stage.
Mr. Chairman, on June 12, 1945, Dwight Eisenhower stood on the balcony of London’s Guildhall, where he was to receive the Freedom of the City of London. Europe lay in ruins. More than 15 million people in the Western part of continent had perished, not counting the 25 million Soviets who died on the Eastern Front. Eisenhower, who had victoriously commanded the largest military operation in the history of warfare, stood before millions of cheering Londoners. He spoke of the war and the collective effort to defeat Nazism. Without notes, Eisenhower began his speech. “Humility,” he said, “must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in the blood of his followers and the sacrifices of his friends.”
These simple words, crafted without the help of a speech writer, offer a guide for capturing the essence of World War II’s Supreme Commander of Allied Expeditionary Forces, Europe and later our nation’s two-term president.
After many months of public debate and behind the scenes interaction, the Eisenhower Memorial Commission (EMC) announced yesterday that it is asking the National Park Service to delay its application to the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC), originally scheduled for April 5. Another date for consideration of Frank Gehry’s design has not been set. The Eisenhower family called for such a delay at the end of 2011 – but we welcome this belated recognition that the EMC’s proposal is not ready for review.
In another development, the U.S. House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands is holding a hearing on “The Proposed Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial” on Tuesday, March 20, 2012 at 10:00 am in Room 1324 of the Longworth House Office Building. I will be testifying on behalf of the Eisenhower family. We are delighted that the relevant committees in the House are focusing their attention on this issue. Congressmen Frank Wolf, Darrell Issa, Dan Lungren and Aaron Schock have all publicly sent letters to the NCPC. Numerous members of the Senate have offered their support, and this issue has also been brought to the attention of key DC government officials. We are grateful to these elected officials for their attention and leadership. On a personal note, we have also been deeply gratified by the public response that has brought us to this point.
While some people have voiced displeasure that a hearing is now underway, this should not be feared by anyone who cares about the Eisenhower Memorial. Testimony and hearings are a vital step in securing public confidence in the process and allowing individuals of differing views to get their comments on the record.
My testimony will be posted on this site on Tuesday, March 20th.
The Unpredictable Past
In writing on the collapse of the Soviet Union in my 1994 book Breaking Free, I noted the relish with which Soviet jokesters challenged the communist regime, and its ludicrous use of propaganda to trumpet the future and erase all traces of past failures. “The future is bright,” they spoofed, “it’s the past that’s unpredictable.”
Rewriting history, or framing it to meet contemporary ideological objectives, happens to some degree everywhere – even in democracies. That’s why cycles of scholarly reassessment are vital edits to “history’s first draft,” as newspaper reporting is often called. (To have the last word, perhaps, Dwight Eisenhower left a time capsule buried in the wall of my grandparents’ home at their farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.)
One of the most important of these reappraisals on Dwight Eisenhower focuses on his civil rights record. Written by scholar David Nichols, A Matter of Justice, peels back the layers of ideological assumptions to reveal a very different take on the Eisenhower administration’s desegregation strategy in the 1950s. Last week, at the University of Central Arkansas, I was able to reference Nichols’ work in a speech I gave on the 1957 Little Rock crisis. Many in the audience were surprised, for instance, that all federally controlled schools for military dependents, even in the south, were desegregated before Brown v. Board of Education. This, along with the desegregation of Washington, D.C. and the armed forces, was just the beginning of the administration’s effort – under the Justice Department of Attorney General Herbert Brownell. It laid the groundwork for many milestone achievements during those eight years and beyond – including a list of stellar federal and Supreme Court appointments. Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine, was in the audience and like many others there, seemed surprised by this history that was told anew. The conference at the University of Central Arkansas also brought a new dimension to the story by recounting the principled leadership stand taken by the Arkansas Gazette at the time of the Little Rock Crisis in 1957.
Read more…
Let’s Engage on the Real Issues with Ike’s Memorial
One of the oldest ploys in the strategist’s handbook is to create side skirmishes of little value, except as a way to avoid or delay fully engaging the “enemy” or “adversary” in real battle. This may be why staff members of the Eisenhower Memorial Commission have spent little time arguing the merits of the Gehry design. Instead, it seems, they are more interested in igniting mini-battles over non-issues. These side-offensives, however, threaten to turn into circular firing squads.
In a rebuttal to my Q&A with the Washingtonian’s Carol Joynt, Dan Feil, chief architect for the commission, was off-base on a number of important points. If his assertions go un-countered, they could become “facts.”
Much has been made of my brother David Eisenhower’s resignation from the Eisenhower Memorial Commission. We are now – out of necessity – going public. This is what happened:
David stepped down after assuming the position of Chairman of the Eisenhower Foundation. Unlike the commission, this organization is chartered to support the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum. In David’s resignation letter, he cited a conflict of interest and requested that our sister Anne –who is a professional designer – serve as the Eisenhower family representative on the memorial commission. Since David made his request, we have received no response from the commission expressing their willingness to support Anne’s appointment. Read more…
The Eisenhower Memorial: Another Front in the Culture Wars?
For decades I have worked in the national security and energy security arenas where passions run high, but they are tempered by facts and figures, data and verifiable results. That’s why it has been a new experience—and often a disturbing one— to become an unwitting combatant in America’s Culture Wars, confrontations of emotion, taste and values.
What started as a simple request on the part of the Eisenhower family to delay the approval process and groundbreaking for an Eisenhower Memorial has turned into a fiery debate about modernism versus traditionalism; the gender of memorial language in the 21st century; memorial aesthetics on the National Mall; and controversies around the work of the Memorial’s famous architect, Frank Gehry, and his potential sculptor, Charles Ray.
Gehry’s memorial design proposes to highlight a “barefoot boy from Abilene,” who sits in the shadow of 80-foot woven metal “tapestries” that depict the Kansas landscape. Yet little has been said about the best way to capture Dwight Eisenhower’s contribution to his nation—the very reason he is being memorialized in the first place. In essence, the debate has been about the medium not the message; about the objects rather than the objectives. It seems to me that if we can capture what Dwight Eisenhower has to say to future generations, the way to convey it will be clear.
Existing statue of Dwight D. Eisenhower as a boy in Abilene, Kansas
Some of the reporters and officials who have spoken in the media have masked their own strong feelings about the memorial design and concept by putting words into the mouths of various members of the Eisenhower family. This is not surprising, given the emotions this topic has evoked. However, it is an inaccurate filter through which to understand our family’s simple— and what we hope is constructive— position.
In the context of the nation’s recent experience with the Martin Luther King Memorial, the bottom line is simple: The time is now to get this memorial right. We should not be afraid of delays. The FDR Memorial took three different design competitions before reaching a final plan. And for those who think that a “fast track” is the only road to success, the National Building Museum’s exhibit, “Unbuilt Washington,” underscores that nothing in the built environment is inevitable, as one museum official told the gathering at its opening in 2011.
To communicate directly, in the ensuing months I hope to write an occasional blog to keep readers of this site up-to-date on the position of the Eisenhower family. In the meantime, here are a few fast facts:
- The Eisenhower family is not connected to any of the parties currently fighting the memorial. We have our own independent view, which has been set out in two documents : one from my sister, Anne, our family representative on this issue, and the other a letter from my father, John S.D. Eisenhower. Please also see my recent Q and A, which appeared in the Washingtonian.
- We respect all of the artists involved in the Eisenhower memorial project to date. No, we do not “hate” the design, nor do we pass artistic judgment on any of the artists who have been engaged in this process. Appropriateness, however, is absolutely key to the memorialization of Dwight Eisenhower, just as it would be any other American similarly honored.
- We are concerned that through the federal appropriations process “top dollar” has been spent on a memorial design that lacks originality and doesn’t meet common-sense sustainability demands. The statue of a young “barefoot” Dwight Eisenhower has already been done in his hometown of Abilene, where he grew up (see photo above). The idea of metal tapestries has also already been used by Frank Gehry on parking garages in Santa Monica, California and Miami Beach, Florida.
- We hope to find a constructive way to work with the Eisenhower Memorial Commission, though we are concerned and frustrated to read that, according to commission staff, no changes in the design are likely and that the project is still moving at full speed ahead for an early approval.
Let me close in saying that my family encourages all Americans who care about this issue to weigh in with the Eisenhower Memorial Commissioners. Since there is no published list of the Commissioner’s email addresses, it will be easiest to contact the members of Congress who serve on the Commission. Please ask them for a delay in the approval process. If you like, you are also welcome to post a comment here on this website or spread the word to your friends.
This is a case where the old adage “Nothing Good Happens Fast” takes on new meaning and urgency.
To learn more about the controversy surrounding the proposed Eisenhower Memorial, please see Katherine Boyle’s piece “Eisenhower’s granddaughters critical of Gehry’s design” and Philip Kennicott’s piece “Frank Gehry’s Eisenhower Memorial reinvigorates the genre,” both recently published in the Washington Post.
The Eisenhower Memorial: The Crucial Weeks
For more than a month, members of my family and I have been engaged in private meetings to see what common ground is left between us and the Eisenhower Memorial Commission. We deferred Frank Gehry’s invitation to meet with him again for two reasons. First, Mr. Gehry’s client is the Eisenhower Memorial Commission. Since they have the authority and the responsibility for the memorial, it is their obligation to present their proposal to the American people. Second, we strongly assert that a number of critical issues between the Eisenhower family and the Memorial Commission must to be ironed out if we are going to engage with them in any meaningful way.
This weekend the Washington Post will be running a highly visible article about the Eisenhower Memorial. This will be followed by a full Commission meeting on Tuesday, at which Gehry Partners will unveil Frank Gehry’s latest design changes. We hope that the Washington Post piece will be fair and accurate – but we are understandably concerned. Art critic Philip Kennicott has already made his endorsement of the memorial design well known. He also has been critical of the Eisenhower family’s position. (It is disappointing that the Washington Post continues to use a columnist for such reporting tasks.) With respect to the Gehry changes, we will review them early next week to determine whether or not our family can support the new memorial design.
Read more…