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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Dole Kicks Off Drive For Monument But Some Say Wwii Memorial Will Spoil View At National Mall

Associated Press

Former Sen. Bob Dole announced a drive Wednesday to raise $100 million for a World War II memorial and defended its prime National Mall site.

President Clinton chimed in with a letter wishing Dole well “in this noble undertaking.” But Sen. Bob Kerrey, a Medal of Honor winner in Vietnam, said the memorial would spoil the beauty of the Mall site.

Dole, the 1996 Republican presidential nominee and longtime Kansas senator, said at a ceremony on the 7.4-acre site that the fund-raising effort “will end with a great monument in this great setting.”

Private funds will pay for most of the construction and upkeep for the memorial, which sponsors hope to open on Veterans Day 2000.

In a letter supporting the project, Clinton told Dole: “In view of your own service and sacrifice in World War II and your career of public service since, I can’t think of anyone more appropriate for this leadership role.”

Few disagree with the idea of a World War II memorial, but some don’t like the chosen site.

Kerrey, D-Neb., believes the memorial will overwhelm a green, reflective space, known as the Rainbow Pool, between the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial.

“Just like Cinderella’s stepsisters whose feet were too big for the glass slipper, World War II is simply too big for this site,” Kerrey said in a recent letter to the American Battle Monuments Commission. “It will become a World War II mall with Lincoln and Washington at either end.’

Kerrey’s concerns were echoed in a column by Deborah Dietsch, editor of Architecture magazine, who wrote that the partly sunken 43,000-squarefoot structure with its tall, semicircular colonnades would “ruin one of our nation’s cherished vistas.”