Non-Warlike Korean War Statue Urged for San Pedro

A proposed monument to Korean War veterans must undergo a “major redesign” and “reflect a non-aggressive image of war” if it is to be erected next to the Korean Friendship Bell at Angels Gate Park in San Pedro, a Los Angeles city task force has recommended.

Or, the task force has suggested, the veterans backing the memorial may slightly alter their design--which features a battle scene including a dozen soldiers--and build the monument elsewhere in the park, at a site next to a military museum, which the backers find undesirable.

In effect, the 28-page report, released Wednesday, tells the veterans that if they want to put their memorial next to the bell, they must come up with a design “that isn’t soldiers in the heat of battle,” according to task force chairman Adolfo Nodal.

“They’re coming from a photography point of view, a freeze-frame image of war and battle . . . and that’s something that we feel isn’t appropriate for the Friendship Bell site,” Nodal said in an interview Wednesday.

Will Present Report

Nodal, who is also general manager of the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, is scheduled to present the report to the city Cultural Affairs Commission today.

If it is adopted by the commission--which is a good possibility, considering that commission President Merry Norris also serves on the four-member task force--the report will serve as a blueprint for the development of the memorial, which has generated considerable controversy in San Pedro.

The veterans, meanwhile, say they are unhappy with the report.

“I believe the people on the task force and the Cultural Affairs Commission . . . are just placing too much emphasis on (artistic) values and no emphasis at all on the value of remembering those who sacrificed,” said Jack Stites, executive director of a nationwide veterans’ organization proposing the memorial. “I think it’s a sad commentary on where we are today that their memory can be so easily equated into material and aesthetic values.”

Countered Nodal: “Well, aesthetics is what we’re all about.”

Foes Also Critical

Opponents of the monument were also critical of the task force report, saying it does not go far enough in addressing their concerns.

Colleen Clement, spokeswoman for Friends of the Friendship Bell, a group that organized to fight the memorial, said she wanted the task force to look at sites outside Angels Gate Park. In addition, she urged the task force to come out more strongly against the use of any weapons in the sculpture, and against any sculpture that could be seen from the bell--even if it is elsewhere in the park.

Clement also said the community is concerned that the monument will “change the nature of that park from a quiet visual park to . . . more of a center for a military-oriented park.” The task force report does not address that, she said.

The International Korean War Veterans Memorial is intended to honor veterans from the 22 Allied nations that participated in the Korean War, which has been deemed “the forgotten war” by many who fought in it. The memorial is proposed by the Chosin Few, a nationwide group of Marine Corps veterans who fought in the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir. After conducting a national search for a home for their monument, the veterans selected San Pedro in 1986, when Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley offered them the spot next to the Korean Friendship Bell.

The veterans say they want their memorial to be at this site, and that having the monument next to the bell is more important than keeping the original design. But it was unclear Wednesday whether the veterans could accept a drastically altered monument that does not include a battle scene.

The veterans say they like the symbolism of juxtaposing their monument with the bell, which was given to the city in 1976 by the South Korean government. They also like the spectacular views at the bell site, which overlooks Los Angeles Harbor and the Pacific Ocean.

But the Friends of the Friendship Bell have complained that the proposed monument, with its harshly realistic sculpture, would destroy the peaceful atmosphere surrounding the bell. In April, the city Cultural Affairs Commission--one of three government bodies that has jurisdiction over the monument--agreed, and deemed the proposed memorial inappropriate for the bell site.

Other Sites Sought

In the wake of that decision, Bradley appointed the task force and asked it to come up with a plan that would satisfy both sides. The task force spent several weeks meeting with proponents and opponents of the memorial, and toured Angels Gate Park for possible alternate sites.

In its report, the task force set forth a series of guidelines the veterans must follow if they are to build their memorial next to the Friendship Bell. Among the requirements are that the sculpture “reflect a non-aggressive image of war instead of a bellicose and threatening image” and that it not depict guns in a firing position, or pointing at soldiers, at visitors or at the sea.

In addition, the task force called for the monument to be no larger than two-thirds the size of the Friendship Bell (it already fits this requirement, according to Stites) and that women be represented in the sculpture, instead of in a separate statue, as the veterans have recently proposed.

The veterans, in a letter to the task force, have already proposed some revisions that would enable their sculpture to conform with some of these requirements. For example, they have offered to delete two machine guns and a grenade from the monument.

Stites maintains that with the exception of the requirement to include women in the sculpture--he says this cannot be done because “there was never a woman on the battlefield with us”--the revised proposal fits the guidelines the task force issued.

But task force chairman Nodal disagrees, saying that even with those concessions, the sculpture does not fit the most important guideline--the one that calls for it to be non-aggressive. “I think the commission and the task force would like to see more in terms of change,” Nodal said.