Eisenhower as Barefoot Boy? Family Objects to a Memorial

Yes, it’s true that Dwight D. Eisenhower referred to himself as “a barefoot boy” in 1945 when he returned home victorious to Abilene, Kan., after World War II. And it was in that image that the architect Frank Gehry found inspiration for the design of the official memorial to Eisenhower for which groundbreaking is expected this year on the Washington Mall.

The design shows Eisenhower as a youth gazing out at images of his adult accomplishments against a backdrop of the Kansas plains. But the Eisenhower family objects to the design and is attempting to delay approval of the project in a dispute that has pitted a leading American family against one of the country’s most recognized architects. The family says Mr. Gehry should portray Eisenhower as a man in the fullness of his achievements, not as a callow rustic who made good.

“He was chief of staff of the Army; he was a two-term president of the United States,” said Susan Eisenhower, a granddaughter. “It’s in those roles that America has gratitude for him, not as being a young boy with a great future in front of him.”

The family has asked that the project be delayed until its objections are addressed, and others have joined its cause.

“The statue of Ike as a Kansas farmer-boy mocks the president as cornpone in chief, the supreme allied bumpkin,” said the nonprofit National Civic Art Society, which focuses on architecture and urban design.

Last month the Eisenhower family made public its concerns, which also include the memorial’s scope and materials, upon realizing that the project was on a fast track, saying that its views were being disregarded. Mr. Gehry has so far not responded publicly. Officials overseeing the memorial’s construction say they worry that a lengthy dispute would prevent the elderly veterans who are most enthusiastic about an Eisenhower memorial from seeing it.

The memorial application was submitted last month by the National Park Service on behalf of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission, which included the former president’s grandson, David, until he resigned to work with the Eisenhower Foundation. The $112 million memorial will be primarily financed by taxpayers and will be dedicated on Memorial Day 2015, 70 years after the war ended.

The National Capital Planning Commission, which must approve the preliminary design, said it received a letter from the Eisenhower family on Jan. 10 “expressing concerns regarding the design” and requesting a delay.

“The commission appreciates the comments provided by the Eisenhower family regarding this important project,” Marcel C. Acosta, the executive director, said in a statement.

The general concept of the memorial's design and its overall configuration has been approved by the United States Commission of Fine Arts, which last fall praised “the sophistication of the design,” and said “the proposed artistic treatment will transform the site and the context of adjacent federal buildings.”

The job of building national memorials is often complicated by the conflicting views of various stakeholders. And the process can be particularly knotty when family members are involved. Theodore Roosevelt’s relatives for decades quashed efforts to memorialize him, suggesting they were premature. Attempts by officials to erect a mausoleum for George Washington were stymied by relatives.

“The family kept on politely telling them, ‘You can’t have the body,’ ” said G. Martin Moeller Jr., the senior vice president and curator of the National Building Museum. “ ‘He’s already been buried at Mount Vernon, and we’re not giving him up.’ ”

Ms. Eisenhower said it makes sense for memorial makers to take into account the feelings of family members, who typically have the best sense of a person.

“The executor of my grandfather’s will is still alive — and that’s my father — and so are his children, four of us,” she said in a telephone interview. “We lived on an adjacent property in Gettysburg. He came to my horse shows, he went to my sister’s ballet recitals, he went to my brother’s swim meets. We knew him well. So there’s not that kind of remoteness when memorials are being designed for figures who died centuries ago. We at least should be allowed a voice given the fact that we knew him better than anybody else.”

David Eisenhower has referred calls about the memorial to his sisters, but last month he told his family, “I am very relieved that the design issues have been reopened,” according to Susan Eisenhower’s Web site.

Mr. Gehry’s design calls for a four-acre site partially enclosed by transparent woven metal tapestries that display images of the Kansas plains and hang between 80-foot-high columns. On a low stone wall sits a statue of the young Eisenhower. An artist has yet to be selected.

Anne Eisenhower, another granddaughter, said Mr. Gehry had initially indicated that he’d be open to the family’s input and flexible about his design. “He’s always said that he wants to work with us, and that he’d be delighted to make whatever changes are necessary,” she said.

Mr. Gehry did not respond to calls and e-mails seeking comment; his assistant said he was traveling overseas. In testimony last year, he said that he was drawn to the project in part because he had served in the Third Army after Eisenhower became president. “So he was my commander in chief,” Mr. Gehry said.

Susan Eisenhower said there was already a statue of her grandfather as a boy in Abilene, appropriately placed, she said, in the park where he used to play. “That’s very different from putting a young Eisenhower in the nation’s capital,” she said. “To focus on his origins obscures a focus on his accomplishments, which I think is a lost opportunity.”

The memorial is to be located on the Mall at the base of Capitol Hill, north of the Education Department.

Susan Eisenhower said the tapestries are metaphorically problematic in that they serve as a “barrier” between the memorial and the Education Department building, named for President Lyndon B. Johnson.

“My grandfather and Lyndon Johnson had a remarkably constructive working relationship,” she said. “The American people long for genuine bipartisanship, and Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson managed to accomplish a great deal together.”

Brig. Gen. Carl W. Reddel, the executive director of the Eisenhower Memorial Commission, said he is concerned about a delay given the “mortality of the World War II veterans and Korean War veterans.”

The commission’s chairman, Rocco C. Siciliano, a lawyer and World War II veteran, is 89. The vice chairman, Senator Daniel K. Inouye, also a veteran, is 87. Mr. Gehry is 82. “They’re all conscious of the passage of time,” Mr. Reddel said.

But some say the creation of a memorial can benefit from delay. The Lincoln Memorial probably would not have included text of the Gettysburg Address had it been built in 1865, the year of Lincoln’s death, Mr. Moeller said.

“At the time it wasn’t really regarded as an important speech,” he said. “Only later did it become iconic. Our attitude about specific individuals tends to change over time.”