OPINION:
I dearly hope that President Trump corrects two things at the Kennedy Center: the name and the institution’s accessibility to the average American (“Trump sees ‘tremendous potential’ in Kennedy Center remake,” Web, March 17).
The building was supposed to named the Eisenhower Center, after President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who, happily for the Western world, devoted his life to public service. The West Point graduate rose to the rank of five-star general in the U.S. Army, became supreme allied commander during World War II, organized and led the largest maritime invasion in the history of the world on D-Day, and helped to — within a year’s time — destroy the Nazi war machine and free Europe. He then served as president of Columbia University and as the first commander of NATO before being elected our 34th president.
In 1955, recognizing America’s need to take its place on the world’s cultural stage, President Eisenhower established a commission for a new public auditorium in the nation’s capital, and he later signed the National Cultural Center Act. The tragic death of President John F. Kennedy led to the center being named for Kennedy, despite the fact that his 18 years of public service paled in comparison to Eisenhower’s 50.
Accordingly, I recommend that President Trump rename the building the Eisenhower Center. A less desirable compromise might be the Eisenhower-Kennedy Center.
As to the center’s accessibility by the general public, I recently looked into taking my granddaughter to see “The Sound of Music.” But the least expensive tickets were for seats in the upper balcony, miles from the stage — and they started at $242 plus tax. President Trump should require that the price of tickets for a quarter of the seats at every center performance be capped at the cost of the average movie ticket. That would make our national cultural center affordable for the average American, not just the privileged, wealthy elite.
B.P. COTTER
Leesburg, Virginia
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