Three weeks ago, when Jurretta Heckscher recycled my connotatively loaded 
word to create the subject line above, I had written, "Note for Jurretta 
Heckscher: Despite my distraction by the  decidedly non-irenic Irene, I 
still owe you that Fort-Monroe-snookered-historians answer, and I want to 
supply it." Under that new subject line, she answered:
QUOTE
Thanks, Steven.  I look forward to it.

And speaking of Irene, dare one hope that the storm's postponement of the 
dedication of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial in Washington might 
provide more time for thoughtful decision-makers to consider the long 
history of heroic struggle that made Dr. King's achievements possible? 
And that that struggle reached perhaps its pivotal moment in the actions 
that made Fort Monroe the beachhead of freedom?   One can only hope.
UNQUOTE

Following is a message that I'm circulating widely this morning. It contains 
not only a charge of dereliction of duty by the National Trust for Historic 
Preservation, but a paragraph on none other than James McPherson, who may 
not be snookered, but who in any case has joined other historians in failing 
to defend the historic landscape on the designated national historic 
landmark that constitutes almost all of Fort Monroe. That paragraph still 
does not answer the question I framed for myself. But in the context of the 
message below, it begins to show pretty clearly the kind of thing I'll be 
talking about. I have similar disappointments, in other words, to discuss 
concerning the nondefense of Fort Monroe's full historic landscape by Edward 
L. Ayers, Adam Goodheart and Douglas Brinkley. All of them have talked to me 
over the years, but none of them has answered my questions or comments about 
the crucial issue of the actual land at Fort Monroe -- even though all of 
them, presumably, understand about subdivisions near Monticello, big box 
stores near a battlefield, and casinos at Gettysburg.

- - - - - - - - - -
Associated Press continues false Fort Monroe reporting

By including falsehoods in reporting on politicians’ plans for post-Army 
Fort Monroe, Va., the Associated Press continues to privilege a powerful 
overdevelopment faction in the six-year struggle for national historic 
landmark land on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of Hampton Roads.

This e-mail message -- to journalists, decision makers, friends of Fort 
Monroe and advocates for American history -- explains what I believe AP is 
doing wrong and why it matters. I apologize that I’m not clever enough to 
explain more briefly.

The problem is a Big Conflation that’s cousin to the Big Lie. To make parts 
of Fort Monroe into a national park or monument is not to make Fort Monroe 
itself into one. The Big Conflation exploits confusion over the fact that a 
moated stone fortress that’s sometimes called Fortress Monroe constitutes an 
eighth of the threatened historic landscape, Fort Monroe itself.

AP articles today at DailyPress.com in Newport News and Chron.com in 
Houston -- and probably elsewhere -- stipulate truthfully that only portions 
of Fort Monroe are being considered for national monument status. But the 
first paragraph begins by falsely citing “Fort Monroe's preservation as a 
national monument.”

And the article’s final sentence reports falsely, “Legislation that has the 
bipartisan support of Virginia's delegation is also pending in Congress to 
designate the fort a national park.” In fact that legislation involves only 
the parts of Fort Monroe that no one ever intended to overdevelop anyway.

True, the Daily Press’s paper version omits that false final sentence, and 
true, the paper version’s front-page teaser blurb correctly reports that 
only “portions” of Fort Monroe are being considered for national monument 
status. Unfortunately, however, that teaser blurb carries this false 
headline: “Fort Monroe eyed as national monument.”

That’s the Big Conflation. It matters because, judging by what I hear from 
Virginians who have watched the six-year struggle, trusting citizens are 
being deceived into believing that the overdevelopment threat has subsided.

It has not.

And overdevelopment matters in something akin to the way that subdivisions 
on a Monticello hillside would matter, or casinos at Gettysburg, or a big 
box store beside a Civil War battlefield.

Unfortunately, the Big Conflation even tainted a recent Norfolk 
Virginian-Pilot op-ed by the eminent historian James McPherson, who asserted 
incorrectly that Fort Monroe “is being considered as a potential new 
national monument.” The Big Conflation has also tainted reporting at the 
Washington Post and elsewhere.

Fort Monroe preservationists have come to disagree on strategy. A 
self-appointed citizens’ committee of about six active people -- a group 
that I co-founded in 2006 -- hopes that somehow, some way, things will be 
made right in future years or decades if Virginians will only just grasp now 
for a national park or monument as Virginia’s leaders are cynically defining 
it.

Seeking to divert attention, Virginia’s leaders, with smiley faces, are 
calling for a tiny, token national park that’s actually bifurcated on Fort 
Monroe’s bayfront for what the editors of the Richmond Times-Dispatch have 
called “swanky condos.”

Fort Monroe’s colossal value as waterfront real estate makes the stakes so 
high that even so trusted an organization as the National Trust for Historic 
Preservation has never stood up for the entire national historic landmark. 
Instead, NTHP kowtows to narrow, parochial interests centered in Hampton and 
abetted in Richmond.

NTHP’s failure to do its duty has stifled the potential for national 
attention and has multiplied the difficulties for Fort Monroe’s defenders in 
Virginia’s political struggle. It’s hard to defend the full historic 
landscape of a national treasure when the NTHP itself is abstaining.

And in fact everybody in Tidewater who has fought for Fort Monroe for six 
years -- including that citizens' committee -- believes that all of Fort 
Monroe needs to become a revenue-generating, taxpayer-minimally-burdening 
Grand Public Place built on a substantial national park along Fort Monroe’s 
entire bayfront, and that development not directly related to the national 
park must be kept inland.

That’s also the view held overwhelmingly by the tens of thousands of 
Virginians who have been watching the political struggle. It’s the view held 
by the large numbers of them who recently e-mailed public officials 
demanding a real national park, not a token one. (I have copies of about a 
hundred of those e-messages.)

But AP completely ignores the overwhelming view of Fort Monroe’s actual 
citizen-owners, and then undermines it further by falsely propagating the 
Big Conflation.

Fort Monroe’s actual owners’ view, nevertheless, is why Virginia’s 
overdevelopment-obsessed leaders desperately need the Big Conflation.

AP could never defend this reporting before any Journalism 101 class.

For more, please see my recent Richmond Times-Dispatch op-ed: 
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/oped/2011/aug/11/tdopin02-corneliussen-what-fate-for-this-national--ar-1230828/

Please forward this message widely.

Steven T. Corneliussen
[log in to unmask]
Cell: 757 813-6739 

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