Zero Consensus on a Tribute

They lost loved ones in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and have been actively involved in efforts to build a memorial at ground zero. Debra Burlingame and Paula Berry agree that America, and the world, must never forget.

But Burlingame, whose brother Charles was captain of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon, and Berry, whose husband, David, died in the South Tower, differ sharply over newly revealed plans to build a museum at the World Trade Center site.

And the conflict between them -- reflecting the divergent feelings of other Sept. 11 family members -- suggests that the debate over what to build at ground zero may soon focus less on what structures look like than on the messages they convey.

Plans call for the International Freedom Center to open in 2009, along with related cultural facilities. The museum would pay homage to those who died Sept. 11, but it mainly would tell the story of the fight for freedom around the world.

A multimedia tour would detail human rights conflicts throughout history, including slavery in America, the Soviet gulag system and the struggles of Chinese dissidents. There would be lectures, symposia and debates on current affairs, giving the 250,000-square-foot complex the feeling of a “town square,” sponsors say.

“American freedom was attacked on 9/11, and the exhibits in this museum would remind visitors that freedom must always be defended,” said Tom Bernstein, a businessman and movie producer who is heading up the project. “Our belief is that 9/11 transformed us as a people, and so should a visit to the site.”

The museum, Bernstein noted, is being developed by a nonpartisan group of academics, cultural historians and other experts. It is part of the master plan for the 16-acre site in Lower Manhattan that was approved two years ago.

Construction of the Freedom Center and related buildings will cost an estimated $500 million. America’s living ex-presidents -- Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton -- are heading a nationwide fundraising campaign.

There has been much debate over the larger buildings slated for the World Trade Center site. The museum did not become a hot issue until last month, when planning details emerged and critics, including family members, rallied in opposition.

Burlingame and others were angered by disclosures that some museum consultants and developers had publicly criticized the war in Iraq and the treatment of detainees at the U.S. prison facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Their chief concern, however, was that a museum focusing on issues unrelated to the tragedy of Sept. 11 was not appropriate in a place where so many had died.

Last month, more than 200 people who lost loved ones at ground zero protested plans for the Freedom Center. Organizers of a website critical of the museum said they had gathered more than 16,000 signatures. And New York Gov. George E. Pataki, who supported the initial concept of the center, warned that he would not tolerate “anti-American” agitation by the museum or any other facility at the site.

Burlingame, of Westchester County, launched the campaign against the center with a June 8 opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal. A member of the board of directors of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, she spoke at last year’s Republican National Convention and has been critical of relatives of Sept. 11 victims who have come out against the Bush administration’s war on terrorism.

“Any museum that goes beyond the story of what happened on that day is inappropriate and an insult to people who died,” she said. “We need a dignified museum that tells people about heroism and bravery, not a history lesson.”

Museums at Pearl Harbor and Oklahoma City, Burlingame said, are confined to the story of what happened in those places: “You wouldn’t want to visit Auschwitz and talk about Tiananmen Square,” she said. “Why do that at ground zero?”

But other family members, like Berry, believe the museum is appropriate.

A resident of Brooklyn, she has been raising three young boys since her husband died. She is a member of the Memorial Foundation board of directors and also is a member of the 13-person jury that made decisions about the winning designs to construct a memorial and other cultural structures at ground zero.

“There is a larger story that needs to be told here,” Berry said. “We need to explore the historical message of 9/11, the meaning of what happened on that day.”

Berry said the Freedom Center would not offend patriotic sensibilities, as critics have contended, but instead would help visitors from different backgrounds connect the events of Sept. 11 with struggles for freedom around the world.

“The museum can’t just be something that looks backward,” she said. “It has to give us a sense of the future, something that’s alive and relevant to us now.”

Museums at emotionally charged sites typically focus on the event in question, said Indiana University history professor Edward Linenthal, because “nobody wants to put up a memorial or museum that distracts attention from what happened.”

For example, the museum at the site of the 1995 Oklahoma City federal building bombing chronicles the arrests and convictions of Timothy J. McVeigh and Terry L. Nichols. But “you won’t find any reference to the world out of which they came, and the forces that drove them. It’s as if these two bombers dropped out of the sky,” said Linenthal, author of “The Unfinished Bombing: Oklahoma City in American Memory.”

Because there is no national consensus on what Sept. 11 means, he added, the clamor of voices could present difficulties for the Freedom Center.

“There are a lot of bitterly contested explanations,” he said. “And in some ways, there’s a presumptuousness that someone would tell us now what it’s all about.”

Some family members -- like William Doyle, who lost a son at the World Trade Center -- said the museum might be a good project. He just doesn’t want it, or anything like it, at ground zero. Doyle said he would keep fighting the plan until Pataki and other officials withdrew their support.

Last week, family members lobbied members of Congress in Washington, asking that the museum be stopped.

“I hear all of these criticisms, and I think they miss the point of what we’re trying to do,” Bernstein said. “I really believe there is something that binds us all together on this issue, and that it can help us transcend the angry politics of the moment.”

That something, he said, is the unity Americans showed after the attacks.

“We want to build an institution that leaves a legacy and is a force for moderation and reason in an immoderate world,” he said. “The question is: Can we do that?”