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Controversy over a national Vietnam veterans' memorial to be...

By MICHAEL SULLIVAN

WASHINGTON -- Controversy over a national Vietnam veterans' memorial to be erected next year has surfaced over the structure's design and color, fund sponsors say.

The controversy, said Jan Scruggs, founder and president of the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial Fund, arose when the winning design, chosen May 6, did not specifically identify the structure as a Vietnam veterans' memorial.

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Additionally, the open 'V' design -- the winning entry submitted by 21-year-old Yale architecture student Maya Ying Lin -- is to be of polished black granite, a color many feel inappropriate for a memorial.

'There's going to be no doubt in anybody's mind that it is the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial,' says Scruggs, adding, 'we never intended to put up a design that would not be identified as a Vietnam memorial.'

The designation, he said, will be either on or in front of the memorial, to be located on a two-acre site in Constitution Gardens on the Mall near the Lincoln Memorial.

Due to misunderstandings over the design, Scruggs said some members of the fund's advisory board have threatened to quit. None has, however, and Scruggs said he is confident none will.

'The majority (of people) think it is a damn good design,' said Don Shaet, executive vice president of the fund and a 25-year Marine Corps veteran.

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Shaet said some negative response has been received, but veterans' organizations have pledged to raise funds for the memorial.

The memorial, said Shaet, is the 'only ... positive thing' that has been done for Vietnam veterans. Criticism, he said, is 'nonsense.'

'The sole purpose of the organization,' Shaet said, 'is to honor and recognize the Vietnam veterans.'

Controversy over the choice of black granite, Scruggs said, 'really obscures' the whole issue of the reason for the memorial -- to honor those who served in Vietnam and 'our friends who were killed there.'

Shaet said polished black granite will serve as a 'gleaming memorial' to veterans, noting the bases of the Iwo Jima and Seabee memorials are made f the same material.

Both Scruggs and Shaet stressed the project is now in a 'design development' phase.

The nearly 400-foot-long memorial will have the names of the 57,692 Americans who died in the decade-long conflict inscribed in chronological order. There will be space for the names of some 2,500 Americans still listed as missing.

The memorial, estimated to cost $7 million, is scheduled to be dedicated on Veterans' Day of 1982.

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