Supporters of Rejected War Monument Ponder Moves

A decision by the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Commission to reject plans for a Korean War memorial at a city park in San Pedro has left veterans and their backers--including a top aide to Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley--wondering what happened and trying to figure out their next move.

“I just don’t understand how we were all blind-sided on this,” said Bea Canterbury Lavery, the Bradley aide who has been coordinating the memorial effort. “I’m just appalled at what happened.”

The commissioners’ vote late last week was a harsh lesson in city government for the veterans, who apparently believed that the strong support of the mayor was all they needed to build their monument at Angels Gate Park, on a slope between the Korean Friendship Bell and the Pacific Ocean.

“I feel totally betrayed,” said Jack Stites, who chairs the memorial committee. “. . . I guess I was stupid to think that we had something that we obviously didn’t.

‘Site Is Yours’

“I have letters from city officials, including the mayor, saying, ‘The site is yours, go build your monument,’ and suddenly, we find that that’s not the case.”

A spokeswoman for the mayor said that while Bradley remains supportive of the monument effort and would like to see it built, he will not intervene.

“He says the Cultural Affairs decision stands, and he does not plan on going in and telling Cultural Affairs to approve a design that it rejected,” spokeswoman Lydia Shayne said.

By a unanimous 5-0 vote, the commission decided that the current design of the monument, which features a bronze sculpture of a dozen larger-than-life soldiers in battle, is inappropriate for the site near the bell.

In so doing, commissioners adopted the position of the Friends of the Friendship Bell, a community group that has opposed the monument on the grounds that it glorifies war and would destroy the integrity of the bell.

“I’m ecstatic,” said group member Colleen Clement of the commission’s decision.

The city panel’s action leaves the veterans with three main options: They may propose the sculpture for another site, propose a different sculpture for the bell site or try to take their monument to another city.

None of the options are truly palatable for the veterans. Stites said they have already spent more than $250,000 on the site design and have a commitment to the sculptor, Terry Jones of Newtown, Pa., who has begun work on the project.

Nationwide Group

Stites, who represents a nationwide group of veterans called the Chosin Few--after the Chosen Reservoir battle--said he is not sure what his group will do. He said he will probably recommend that the veterans find another host city or drastically alter the design.