Eisenhower Memorial
So it seems that Frank Gehry is designing a memorial for Dwight Eisenhower on the National Mall. Eisenhower’s family is angry because, gasp, one of the scenes shows Dewey as a poor, barefoot kid. My God! Rather than portray him as “cornpone-in-chief” as one critic wrote, the Eisenhower family wants him in full heroic form.
Two points:
1. Portraying our leaders in full quasi-fascist heroic poses creates really bad monuments. The pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps story is central to American mythology. Even though I deeply critique that, it is less offensive than an Eisenhower lording his greatness over us. I haven’t been to DC in a few years so I haven’t seen the MLK memorial. But I am almost certain to dislike it because it, I understand, is kind of towering. A better memorial to King would be sized to real-life, i.e., he was a short man. It is in his normality than King was a great man. He wasn’t that different than the rest of us. Neither was Eisenhower.
2. Does Eisenhower really need a memorial on the National Mall? The monument-building on the Mall has gotten a little over the top in the last decade or so. I’m really unconvinced that Eisenhower deserves to take some of the rapidly decreasing open space. While Eisenhower was the lead general of U.S. forces in Europe during World War II, I don’t see that as sufficient given his presidency, which was mediocre. And before anyone commends Dewey for nationalizing the National Guard in Little Rock, note that Eisenhower was an open racist but couldn’t allow Faubus to flaunt federal authority. But hey, I’m sure the Guatemalans, Vietnamese, and Iranians would be real happy to know Eisenhower is being honored.
Who’s next for the Mall? Nixon? Rutherford Hayes? We also don’t have enough monuments to James Blaine in this country.
….This brings up a related thought. Is there any more egregious naming of a major structure for a political figure than John Foster Dulles Airport? Dulles? Arguably the worst Secretary of State in history. The man who promoted Diem for the sole reason that they were both Catholic? The man who did the bidding of his good friends at United Fruit and overthrew Arbenz? Couldn’t we rename the airport for someone slightly more competent. Like, I don’t know, Millard Fillmore?
But hey, I’m sure the Guatemalans, Vietnamese, and Iranians would be real happy to know Eisenhower is being honored
[polite, sustained golf applause]
It would not be the most ridiculous monument to a President that we have erected.
I would, however, be sorely disappointed if the monument did not have an engraved copy of his Gettysburg Address.
Oh sir, I see you have not been to the Garfield tomb in Cleveland. It makes McKinley’s look downright modest.
I grant that the statue of McKinley in his tomb is somewhat shorter than the statue of Garfield in his tomb. I hold that the overall effect of the McKinley monument gives Garfield a run for his money.
But the monument mentioned above is not McKinley’s tomb. Read the cited inscription.
Right, I saw it. But the Garfield is one of my favorite places in the country so I needed to mention it.
It used to be on my jogging route through Lake View Cemetery. What a fantastic, weird building — I love both the exterior mosaics of him teaching Latin and the stained glass inside with the off-kilter representations of the original 13 colonies.
It looks like a stubby stone rocket.
There are ridiculous monuments to McKinley scattered throughout Ohio. His birthplace in Niles, the tomb in Canton, the state capital in Columbus. It’s very weird.
I attribute it to the influence of Mark Hanna, who had much reason to grieve the loss of President McKinley. (“Now look–that damn cowboy is President of the United States!”)
Mark Hanna is buried in the same graveyard as Garfield. But I couldn’t find his tomb. It made me irritated. Rockefeller is buried there as well.
And Elliot Ness, although he has a better memorial in Cleveland.
Eisenhower’s Gettysburg Address:
1195 Baltimore Pike
Gettysburg, PA
There should be a major review on why the MLK memorial turned out so terrible. The statue is bad enough but an edited quote? Did they learn nothing from the Lincoln memorial? A man who is famous for his words should have those words respected and should not be edited by future generations for space reasons.
For the Eisenhower memorial- I do not at all understand the Eisenhowers’ complaints, Ike grew up poor, so what? Why should that be removed from a memorial with multiple depictions of the President?
Putting up the Eisenhower memorial up is short-sighted. Theoretically, we’re going to have a lot of presidents and a couple of them are going to deserve space on the mall.
The MLK memorial should have just been a life-sized statue of him standing where he gave the I Have a Dream Speech. It’d symbolize a lot more powerfully what was important about the man.
I have always thought exactly the same thing. It could still happen.
I do want my 50-foot tall heroic Frederick Douglass statue, though. Preferably stomping on something (the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored?).
I was looking at booking a flight into Dulles a couple weeks ago and had the same thought. Maybe not ‘most egregious’ but definitely ‘wait, why does he get an airport?’
That said, you apparently chose well by avoiding Reagan:
http://jethead.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/why-you-should-never-fly-into-washington-national-airport/
Are there any memorials to George Marshall? And speaking of Ohio politicans, how the top 10 politicians from every state coming?
No, but there is a Memorial Library in Lexington, VA. Marshall was quoted as saying, somewhere, something along the lines of “any monument to me should be a granite block about the size and shape of the desk I spent most of the war behind.”
I respectfully submit that Reagan Airport is the worst!
It’s a shitty little airport named after a shitty President, who was the genial, but brain-dead mannequin put up for display to the rubes by the rich-wanting-to-get-richer architects behind the “Reagan De-evolution.”
I had to change flights there once, and they kept us in some converted hanger which was turned into some completely charmless, acid-nightmare version of a terminal. And I had to sit there for 4 hours. You wouldn’t let the worst prisoners at Gitmo touch the food or drink the coffee offered there, lest some international agencies started a movement to boycott the US for ill-treating its prisoners.
THE WORST FLYING/LAY-OVER EXPERIENCE EVAH!!!
As far as flying experiences go, I’ll take National (I refuse to call it Reagan) anyday. You can get there on the Metro and its small enough that you can walk to your gate–no crowded shuttles–and the lines are short.
You may well be right, and National is good for that.
All I know is that, whether I lived in NY or NC, when I had to go to Washington, I’ve always driven up to DC, and then used the Metro.
I’m talking about National as a hub, which I had to experience on flights from some airports in NC when going to upstate NY, and back.
And as a hub, it is genuinely awful!
When the wing-nuts re-named National Airport, I recall one pundit pointing out that Reagan built his entire political career around bashing Washington DC and naming an airport in the District after him would be like naming an airport in Atlanta after William Tecumseh Sherman.
They named their original hockey team “The Flames”. Then again, it was probably owned by a carpetbagger.
That actually makes me like the name more, honestly. It’s kind of an FU to Washington, but also a really poor way to honor Reagan. But then, I’m one of those Washingtonians who still refers to the airport as “National” and never as “Reagan National.”
Frankly, my vote for the worst airport name is the Ted Stevens in Anchorage. Never name an airport after someone who is not yet dead, in case he gets indicted.
… or dies in a plane crash.
I wonder what the air traffic controllers who work at Reagan National think of the name?
The USS John C. Stennis, maybe?
Alright! There is hope in LGM land.
Reagan International.
I want one of Tom Paine before another frickin’ Republicon
You couldn’t have a Tom Paine airport. People would get too rowdy during delays.
This brouhaha just reminds me how miraculous the Vietnam War Memorial is.
There was probably only a short period when it could have been built: when there were still large numbers of young-ish vets, and before America decided the best way to deal with the aftermath of Vietnam was to completely forget about it. And it still seems like luck that it got built in that window, during Reagan’s first term fer chrissake.
Of course, the most surprising thing is how perfectly it expresses aspects of a tragedy that everyone can appreciate. The only other government-sponsored work that comes close to it that I know of is the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin.
If a Vietnam memorial were built today, there’s a good chance Congress wouldn’t actually build one, but instead divert the funding stream into buying every real Murkin a stick with which to beat hippies.
If the Vietnam Memorial were build today, it would be a shirtless Rambo firing a machine gun, standing atop a mountainous pile of spent shells, and the caption at the base would read “America is finally allowed to win.” Alternate caption “America Fuck Yea.”
DXM please dont give them ideas
It’s instructive to remember just how much opposition there was to Maya Lin’s design when it was unveiled, with Lin herself getting an awful amount of racist flak from bigots who thought that it was some sort of slap in the face that the memorial was being designed by an Asian woman. Of course, once it was unveiled and turned out to be one of the most celebrated and moving war memorials ever built, people like James Webb found themselves clutching a venti go-cup of STFU.
There was a brief burst of hostility after it was built, too.
I recall reading one critic who called it a “dark gash,” a choice of words made even more special by the context, which was a comparison with the Washington monument.
I’m a fan of the Korean War memorial. There is nothing traditionally heroic about those statues, slogging along in their ponchos, and at night, they are genuinely unsettling.
I saw it on a chilly, misty morning, and found it quite affecting.
Well consider what he was up against.
My favorite example of a false-equivalence:
And as dramatic evidence for how central this quote was to LBJ’s career, 7 of google’s top 10 results for the quote are comments here and at Pandagon, and at Oliver Willis, by Manju. The actually letter allegedly being quoted does not itself come up. Just Manju. Over and over and over.
OCD is a terrible thing.
On the bright side, that does mean he’s managed to master copy & paste.
Which is a rather major accomplishment for him. He must have advanced to the head of the special ed class.
To his credit, at least he avoided the “Robert Byrd Robert Byrd Robert Byrd!” argument (for now).
Oops – above was me.
Forgive me for being the only one transporting civil-rights book-knowledge onto the Internet.
But if you believe that if its not on the interwebs it can’t exist, worry not Malaclypse…google-books or scholar should do the trick.
Internet tradition, at this point, requires me to advise you to keep fucking that chicken.
Needs more Strom Thurmond.
I don’t understand why you devote so much effort to reminding everyone that the Democrats progressed on race issues between the 50s and the 70s, while the Republicans went backwards.
Everyone already knows that, and it just makes your side look worse.
Joe,
When the LGM Dixiecrat crew pops in to nod in agreement to someone who just described the quote in question as “allegedly being quoted”, it’s fairly obvious that I’m not “reminding” anyone here of anything.
I’m teaching.
Right, “teaching.” Snerk.
Well, go with “introducing” then.
Just don’t go searching the interwebs for my completely accurate quotes, then complain that you knew all about them all along.
You don’t like the contents. I get it. If I were to type “lost the south for a generation” I’m sure I’d receive no complaints.
…and it would pop up on google.
John Foster Dulles was a Presbyterian. His son, Avery Dulles converted and became a Catholic Priest and later was made a Cardinal.
You are spot on about the too many monuments on the mall, I think it has gotten out of hand.
Catholics were the most prominent members of the social and political elites of Vietnamese society during the French regime, and were the backbone of the ruling caste after the French were expelled and the partition into North and South, with Catholic Vietnamese from the North streaming down to Saigon or Hue. Theiu was also Catholic, as were many other central players in the military and politics of South Vietnam. One of the (many) factors leading to the fall of Khanh’s regime was the fact he wasn’t a Catholic.
Being Catholic was very significant in the cesspool of South Vietnamese politics. That was the leadership cadre, such as it was.
If more of the stuff on the Mall looked like these bizarre communist things, I’d be a lot happier seeing them go up.
That is the coolest link I’ve seen in weeks.
Thanks.
Indeed. An indie band called Unknown Mortal Orchestra used the 2nd one from the top for their album cover, and I was dying to know where that image came from.
It’s like Communists from the future came and built them.
Minor quibble, weren’t the Dulles brothers Episcopalian?
Presbyterian. JF’s son Avery converted to Catholicism, but JF never did.
Ah, Hank got there first.
Big doesn’t necessarily mean “fascist” or “overpowering.”
Abe in his chair is quite human. Einstein is a big, comforting teddy bear.
Yes, that’s a good point.
The Lincoln memorial is very overpowering, and I like it that way. I like the way that it makes me feel humble and powerful at the same time. You need to read the Gettysburg address while there to get the feeling.
I suppose that same effect is necessary for fascism. The individual is humbled as an individual, but made to feel empowered as part of a group. Instead of “the people” (as in government of, by and for) there is the fascisti. Monuments are good for that sort of thing.
I wonder if that’s why you need to discover fascism to build Mt. Rushmore in Civilisation IV.
What’s with the Dewey?
He was Dwight David Eisenhower – his brother was Earl Dewey. Although I thought you were talking about Thomas Dewey at first. I can understand why the family wouldn’t want a barefoot Thomas Dewey in the memorial.
Then again, there was Wendell Willkie, the Barefoot Boy From Wall Street.
^^This^^
His nickname was “Ike” and I was wondering why Thomas Dewey was involved, too.
I believe the airport was named after Dulles so that we would hate him everytime we had to drive out to the middle of nowhere to catch a flight, rather than hopping on the metro to Reagan National or taking a quick trip on I-95 to BWI Marshall.
And pay for the privilege.
They have plenty of memorials to Dewey, hundreds right around Washington DC!
They’re called “golf courses”.
I thought Obama was the only president who has ever golfed?
He is!
Now watch this drive…
We need a Douglas MacArthur memorial.
I propose a statue of a an artist carving a figure of Douglas MacArthur, which is trying to grab the hammer and chisel out of his hands.
I’ll never forget hearing this little ditty in some old World War II era movie.
Ha! If there’s a proposal drawn up I’ll put in $10 to help make it happen.
Who’s next for the Mall? Nixon? Rutherford Hayes?
Or, you know.
Jesus Christ on a pogo stick … Reagan, a diplomat? well-liked abroad? The Cowboy? Ronnie Ray-gun? liked abroad? Man, I want some of whatever drugs that guy is on.
What you don’t realize is that all of these monuments are being built so that they form an image of Reagan when viewed from space.
At least we won’t have to worry about a George W. Bush Memorial, what with all the town squares in Iraq named after him.
It’s OK, we’ll sell arms to Iran to raise the funds.
Eisenhower was maybe the last true progressive in the Whitehouse. Taxes just keep getting more regressive and anti-union rules get getting stronger!
Between Eisenhower the man, Eisenhower the President and Eisenhower the general, only the latter deserves consideration of a memorial. If there is to be a memorial, it should be military in nature.
I’m completely baffled by the references to barefoot “Dewey.” That was an Eisenhower family name, but it wasn’t Ike’s.
And no, he isn’t really Mall-worthy.
My nominee for the most egregiously ill-chosen tribute in the form of a public structure: The J. Edgar Hoover Building. But at least the building matches the man.
The case for Ike would be;
1. WWII service
2. The economy / Fiscal responsibility…especially since the entire LW Blogesphere has coroneted the 50′s as the golden age.
3. Civil Rights: Taking on Faubus was a major act. There was heavy resistance, as the LBJ quote above demonstrates. Other liberals weren’t much better.
This doesn’t erase his racism but compared to Kennedy, LBJ, Stevenson, and Truman, he comes out rather well.
It should be noted, just to follow up on the jaw-dropping quote above, that the ’64cra could’ve occurred in ’57, which would’ve sealed his legacy.
Ike was aloof but the real villain was LBJ. The first take on history has whitewashed this. The CV is LBJ watered down the bill in order to get it past the filibuster.
But the Movement itself never believed this, though their voices were drowned out by white liberal historians. The second take reveals that the Movement was right the whole time.
I’ll elaborate, if anyone is genuinely curious. But for our purposes, Ike came very close to real greatness.
[...] (typeof(addthis_share) == "undefined"){ addthis_share = [];}I’ve expressed my reservations before about the idea of a memorial for Dwight Eisenhower on the National Mall and scoffed at the protests by his granddaughters that part of the [...]