WASHINGTON — The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial opened Thursday in Washington, a long-awaited tribute to his legacy as Supreme Allied Commander in World War II and the 34th president.
But the memorial, designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry, also honors Eisenhower’s Kansas roots.
The statues of a general and president are joined by a barefoot boy from rural Kansas alongside a quote from a 1945 speech: “The proudest thing that I can claim is that I am from Abilene.”
This statue is of particular importance to Sen. Pat Roberts, the Kansas Republican who chaired the memorial’s commission.
“I think that sets the tone,” Roberts said.
COVID-19 thwarted the original plans for dedication in April, on the 75th anniversary of the Allies’ victory in Europe over the Nazis.
The date was chosen to acknowledge both Eisenhower’s wartime leadership and support for the memorial from World War II veterans. President Donald Trump was to appear, with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as keynote speaker and a military flyover before a crowd of thousands.
Thursday’s dedication was smaller and simpler — video tributes from Trump, Rice and others, along with a limited crowd at tables 12 feet apart and complimentary “I Like Ike” COVID-19 masks.
The memorial is across the street from the National Air and Space Museum, a popular destination for school field trips. Roberts hopes that teachers will take students, particularly those from small towns like Abilene, to reflect on Eisenhower’s humble origins.
“The figure of the young boy looking toward the memorial and then you read right off the bat that in every man there is a young boy who is dreaming big,” Roberts said.
“Here is a young man who dreamed big, he climbed the ladder of success.”
Victoria Tigwell, deputy executive director of the memorial commission, elaborated on this point during a tour of the memorial for the Kansas City Star and Wichita Eagle.
“If you come down there and you see this young boy and you listen to the audio tour, you’ll find out he had no particular advantages. His family wasn’t well-known. His family wasn’t wealthy,” she said.
“He’s this far out of the wild west, right, when he’s born. And he was determined to get an education. He didn’t have any money. He figured out how to do it. And then in everything he did he’s really acknowledged as really one of the best whether he was a staff officer, a general or president,” she said. “And if you can see that that kid can do that, I hope you think, ‘I can do that.’”
But Gehry’s decision to focus on Eisenhower’s Kansas boyhood caused controversy with Eisenhower’s family.
Susan Eisenhower, the former president’s granddaughter, testified to Congress in 2012 that the “Horatio Alger-like narrative that Eisenhower grew up to ‘make good’ is a slight on the countless millions of people, during World War II and the Cold War, whose very existence was directly affected by Eisenhower’s decisions.”
