When we last looked in on the drive to create a national cultural and performing arts center in Washington DC, President Eisenhower had signed the bill creating it, clearing the way for fundraising to begin.The original plan was that the government would provide the land and all other funding would come from private sources, but Ike was confident that American industries, foundations, and, most importantly, average citizens would all band together to build the center to its full potential. “It carries such great possibilities for present and future generations,” he said. ‘To be located in Washington, the Culture Center belongs to the entire country.”
A few months later in May 1960, an American spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union and it severly damaged the relationship that Eisenhower had been trying to cultivate with Soviet Leader Nikita Khrushchev.Ike was dejected and depressed, convinced that his entire foreign policy and eight years’ worth of attempts to reduce international tension had come to nothing.
One of his close friends consoled him that “while peace will undoubtedly be the indelible hallmark of your administration, [this] cultural center will be your enduring landmark on the Federal City.”It gave him something to rally around for the last few months of his presidency.Shortly after the presidential election that fall, Ike told congressional leaders that the center would be “do a great deal to strengthen the arts in America and thereby improve our cultural image at home and throughout the world.” Early in 1961, as Eisenhower’s things were being packed up for the move to his farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, it began to be apparent that the center did not have enough land.In one of his last official actions, the President encouraged members of Congress to pass a bill as promptly as they could allowing the government to acquire three more small parcels of land adjacent to the center’s site and some scenic riverfront parkland for the project.
After Kennedy was inaugurated, one of his first actions was to renew the call for more land for the National Cultural Center. In letters to congressional leaders Kennedy called the project “the most significant cultural undertaking in the history of this city.” Not only would it benefit the district, but it had “enormous importance to the cultural life of the nation as a whole.”
Even though it took many more years to see the project through to completion, the torch had been passed from one president to the next.The new president would be crucial.
