Eisenhower Memorial Plan Panned by Family

Relatives call it too cold. Want to scrap it and start over.

A memorial to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, first commissioned by Congress 14 years ago, is yet to move much beyond the planning stages. The project has stalled in the face of stiff opposition—which is coming from the Eisenhower family.

The memorial is to be built at a prime location:  just down the hill from the U.S. Capitol and across the street from the museums on the National Mall. But a shovel hasn't touched the ground for the project, despite years of talking about it. Now, some in Congress and the Eisenhower family want the designers to go back to the drawing board.

The memorial's most prominent features are giant transparent metal screens, a kind of iron curtain rising 80 feet into the air and sprawling across about four acres. In the middle of the memorial are three statues: one of Eisenhower as president, another as war general, and finally, as a boy growing up in Kansas.