The nastiest political fight in the nation’s capital has naught to do with tax cuts or missile defense but with the future of the august and venerable Smithsonian Institution.
Smithsonian scientists and research scholars have risen in revolt over what they fear is an effort by the new head of the Institution to curtail its pursuit of knowledge and turn the world’s largest museum and research complex into a taxpayer- and corporate-funded vacation theme park.
As proof, they cite Smithsonian Secretary Lawrence Small’s recently announced plan to close the Institution’s world-renowned wildlife conservation research center in Virginia. The directors of the Brookfield and Lincoln Park Zoos have joined several dozen leading conservation and science organizations from across the country in protesting the proposed closure.
A showdown is expected at Monday’s meeting of the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents, where Small will seek approval not only for closing the wildlife center but also for job reductions, Smithsonian library branch closures and a massive reorganization of the Institution’s varied and far-flung science and research programs into something more “focused.”
“We have written to all the board members but they’ve not invited any of the scientists to appear before them,” said Brian Huber, chairman of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History Senate of Scientists. “Secretary Small will be there and the meeting’s in secret, so I don’t know what will happen.”
The Smithsonian operates 16 museums in Washington and New York. It has eight research centers, including an Astrophysical Observatory at Harvard University and a Tropical Research Institute in Panama.
Each of the museums conducts scientific or scholarly research, and most of the scientists are in the Natural History Museum.
In communications to Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) and other members of Congress, the scientists have used such terms as “dictatorship,” “disastrous” and “unfortunate” to characterize Small’s year-and-a-half tenure as secretary.
A turbulent tenure
They complain that he has brought morale at the Smithsonian to its lowest point.
A former investment banker who previously worked for CitiCorp and the Fannie Mae Corp., Small is the first non-academic to lead the Smithsonian. His chief cultural credentials are an interest in Spanish guitar and a collection of African masks and headdresses.
The regents reportedly brought him in chiefly to address chronic financial and capital investment problems, but he has seized upon that mandate to embark on a transformation of the Institution along corporate lines.
Long a place under which scientists and researchers might go off to look for sunken ships along the coast of Hawaii or seek the elusive, 60-foot giant squid, the Smithsonian seems now to give top priority to attracting museum crowds and donations from wealthy benefactors.
In January, making a report on his first year in office, Small boasted that he had increased private donations to $206 million from $147 million and that the crowds of museum-goers had swelled to 34 million last year from 31 million in 1999.
But he said nothing about science and other scholarly research programs and accomplishments.
He has renamed the National Museum of American History the Behring Center in honor of Kenneth Behring, who recently gave the museum $80 million. With Behring’s support, Small ordered the swift installation of a new exhibit on the American presidency, which was notable for its 900 objects (George Washington’s sword, Bill Clinton’s briefcase, a script from the TV show “West Wing”) but criticized for numerous factual errors and its paucity of scholarship.
On Wednesday, Small’s office confirmed reports that he will soon create a Horatio Algeresque “Hall of Achievers” at the American History Museum. The museum’s African-American director, Spencer Crew, had been trying to establish a scholarly center there for the study of American history in terms of class, race and gender conflict but Small told him there was no money for such a project.
“The basic task currently confronting the Smithsonian is how best to modernize,” said Small in calling for closures and program cuts. “Facing certain budget realities may not be easy, but it is nonetheless necessary if we are to keep our commitment to the American public.”
Bigger budget, program cuts
President Bush has increased the Smithsonian’s budget to $494 million from $454 million. But Small argued that much of that money is earmarked for specific purposes, so the wildlife research center is no longer affordable.
“Federal funds are not interchangeable across budget categories,” Small said.
The scientists angrily disagree.
Part of the problem is Small’s authoritarian, corporate CEO style. When the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery complained that it was getting pushed out of exhibition space by the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum so that the latter could hang more pictures from wealthy donors and loaners, Small declared the matter closed because the two museums accounted for only 2 percent of the Institution’s total visitation and were not worth further discussion.
He also issued a gag order forbidding even the Portrait Gallery’s volunteer docents to talk to the news media or members of Congress about the display space dispute, saying “a well-run organization” does not tolerate that.
The Smithsonian’s board of regents is an august group whose 17 members include Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Vice President Dick Cheney, former University of Chicago President Hanna Gray, former World Bank President Barber Conable, and members of the House and Senate.
Because the proposed closure of the wildlife research center has raised such a national outcry in the scientific community and prompted calls for Senate hearings, it is not likely that the regents will let Small move immediately to abolish the center.
Neither is it likely that they will remove Small, or dismiss out of hand his proposal to curtail and transform Smithsonian research programs. Traditionally, the regents have not been known for imposing hands-on control.
But as they meet in secret to ponder the fate of an Institution that costs American taxpayers almost a half-billion dollars a year, they had best keep one thing in mind: The Smithsonian scientists’ revolt has reached the front pages of The New York Times and network television. Ignoring it is not going to make it go away.
