NOD GRAPPLES WITH FDR MEMORIAL COMMISSION

"THEY HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT FEAR ITSELF"

In case you have not yet heard, a national commission charged with creating a memorial to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is actually planning to depict him as a non- disabled person. Yes incredibly in 1996, the FDR Memorial Commission, Co-Chaired by Senators Mark Hatfield and Daniel K. Inouye and Honorarily Chaired by President Clinton, plans to hide President Roosevelt's disability. As Maureen Dowd put it in the May 2nd, 1996 New York Times "For FDR, concealing his disability was an expression of courage. For custodians of his memory, concealing his disability is a lack of courage. They have nothing to fear but fear itself."

Construction has already started and the monument is due to be completed in early 1997. Funded with $42 million of your and my tax dollars, the massive seven and a half acre memorial, near the Jefferson Memorial, will include not one but three, historically inaccurate statues of the President, along with a statue of his wife Eleanor, 12 foot high waterfalls and an amphitheater.

For over a year the National Organization on Disability, NOD, has taken a strong lead in pushing for a truthful depiction of this President who lead the nation out of the Great Depression and World War II. Roosevelt had polio and for 24 years of his life including all twelve years of his Presidency, and used leg braces and a wheelchair. Yet the FDR Memorial Commission continues to refuse to move beyond their bigotry.

NOD and their effort for realism are supported, among others, by:

eight of FDR's grandchildren,

leading historians and biographers including Pulitzer Prize winner Doris Kearns Goodwin,

former President George Bush, and

73% of the American public, according to a recent Harris Poll.

YOUR HELP IS NEEDED NOW!

Contact the FDR Memorial Commission "chair" people [to use the term loosely]:
Sen Mark Hatfield & Sen Daniel K. Inouye
Co-Chairmen, FDR Memorial Commission
825-A Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Tel: 202/228-2491 Fax: 202/228-1010

-AND-

President Bill Clinton
Honorary Chairman, FDR Memorial Commission
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave
Washington, DC 20502
Tel: 202/456-1111 Fax: 202/456-2462
e-mail: president@whitehouse.gov

FOR MORE INFO:

NOD National Organization on Disability
910 Sixteenth ST NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20006
202/293-5968 voice* 202/293-5968 TDD * 202/293-7999 fax