QUINCENTENARY U.S. Commission Adrift
Bernstein, Jacob
The white banner hanging over the stage proclaimed: "A Celebration of Cultures: The Columbus Quincentennial-with support from Safeway, Inc." The hundred or so spectators in business suits...
...until that moment, no one had informed him...
...In fact, its mismanagement has lent greater credence to the message of those who would mark the occasion in a radically different way...
...In practice, the most important prerequisite for official acceptance is that the project be self-financed...
...But the sponsor, a Japanese firm, pulled out and defaulted on the bill, leaving a debt that the commission only recently paid off...
...government terminated the tribal status of Ray's people in the 1950s, and confiscated its reservation...
...Henry Raymont, one of two academics on the commission, recalls saying upon seeing the commissioner list for the first time...
...Official recognition was restored in 1986, but the nation's landbase remains two state parks...
...The hundred or so spectators in business suits outside Washington, D.C.'s Union Station last October 12 filled only a fraction of the dozens of rows of chairs set up for the event...
...Our great country has opened up its arms to people all over the world," he said...
...Texaco spokesperson David Dickson, however, blames Goudie's mismanagement...
...Goudie also admitted to the New York Times that he failed to file federal income tax returns for 1986 and 1987...
...But in 1988, legislation was Commission Executive DirectorJim Kuhn places the onus for the Texaco fiasco on Spain, who he claims was not forthcoming with "insurance information...
...Donatelli's speech at the Columbus Day ceremony in Washington echoed the prevailing message of the commission that the quincentenary should be a special occasion in which Italian-Americans and Latinos can take pride...
...The commission was granted a total budget of $2 million, broken into portions of $220,000 per fiscal year with an extra $200,000 thrown in for 1992-a paltry sum, given the original plans to sponsor a tour of three Spanish replicas of the ships Columbus took on his first voyage to the Americas, and to help NASA coordinate an international race of solar-powered spaceships to Mars...
...Only two are women, including Lynne Cheney of the NEH...
...In 1989 Texaco pledged $5 million to finance the U.S...
...To be accepted, a project must only loosely relate to any number of themes, from Columbus, the Columbian period, five hundred years of history, the Old World or the New World, to anything remotely connected with the ocean...
...None are Native American...
...The commissioners by and large are people influential in political fundraising or active in volunteer government service, including several lawyers, the Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, a New York stockbroker, corporate CEOs, accountants, bankers, and an Illinois state senator...
...Texaco just had commercial intentions...
...Executive Director Kuhn says the White House is processing the paperwork...
...But the commission only had a business mentality...
...Ray reacted with surprise when asked about his upcoming appointment...
...The controversy that the commission generated has awakened interest in the quincentenary and allowed others to explore it in ways the commission's sponsors never imagined...
...At that time, it was rumored that the FBI was conducting an investigation of Goudie's activities on the commission...
...The commission was supposed to be the official flagship steering all quincentenary projects toward a Hollywoodesque Columbus Day in 1992...
...Treasury mint its own special-edition silver and gold Columbus coins...
...Another disgruntled business that hitched its fortunes to the success of the Jubilee Commission is Norco Awards, Inc., which is under contract to market coins, pins, and medallions with the commission's logo of the three ships and Columbus' portrait...
...In fact Goudie did entice one corporate sponsor into aiding the commission...
...Norco spokesperson Mark Ross says "the company will take a considerable profit loss" due to "the inept and inefficient leadership of the commission and the licensing group...
...Despite protracted three-way negotiations in 1990, Spain rescinded all previous agreements with the commission and the oil company pulled out...
...At this point," Dickson says, "it is not in Texaco's interest to participate in the quincentenary and we are not planning to do anything further with the commission...
...Donatelli views the quincentenary as an opportunity to use Columbus as a symbol of the American dream of progress and development, conquered frontiers, the triumph of capitalism and the success of technology...
...In January 1991, Common Cause broke the story that Goudie has been named as a defendant in 15 lawsuits since 1987, and had his real estate license revoked for improper use of escrow funds...
...Raymont charges that all Goudie accomplished during his tenure as chairman were "several trips to Spain to get his photograph taken with King Juan Carlos...
...Ray hopes that his appointment will create "an opportunity for the commission to deal with the plight of the modern-day Indian...
...Growing louder in the background are the insistentvoices of Native Americans who would like the quincentenary to be observed as a period of mourning and a defiant acknowledgment of their success at survival...
...In addition, the House of Representatives and the Senate nominated seven people each, while the President appointed ten "broadly representative of the people of the United States...
...We may not have seen any new funds," he said, "but they have given funds in the past and so will remain as an official sponsor...
...Across the street an equal number of people, some wearing the red jackets of the American Indian Movement, beat drums and carried posters of Columbus with the caption, "Wanted for Crimes of Genocide...
...In order to deflect Native American criticism of its work, the Jubilee Commission says it is in the process of appointing an Indian commissioner, Bill Ray, a Klamath Indian from Southern Oregon...
...Minting coins is one of several attempts to salvage the commission's waning fortunes by Frank Donatelli, the former AID administrator for Africa and political assistant to Ronald Reagan, who replaced Goudie as chairman in February 1990...
...Rough Seas and Murky Waters What exactly transpired between Texaco, Spain, and the commission remains obscured in a web of denials and conflicting claims...
...Officially designated projects range from a Florida production of the Franchetti opera "Cristoforo Colombo" to a yachting competition in Baltimore harbor and northern Chesapeake bay...
...To add insult to injury, the commission recently moved to have the U.S...
...Christopher Columbus embodies many qualities that can help us: courage, intelligence, perseverance, and vision," he said...
...But we need those old virtues pioneered by Columbus nearly five hundred years ago...
...The New World Summer Program sent 100 students to the Dominican Republic in 1990...
...Besides sponsoring events, the Jubilee Commission acts as a clearinghouse for the quincentenary projects of other federal agencies and private individual organizations, on which it can bestow an official seal of approval...
...The quincentenary is not just an occasion to look back, but also a time to think of the exciting possibilities for a new age of discovery...
...It is my perception that the United States has lost its identity, and that the quincentenary was an opportunity to find it, an occasion to rethink America," says Polzer...
...According to Miguel Ferrer, director of the Spain '92 Foundation, a non-profit organization established by the Spanish government to promote its version of the quincentenary in the United States, "Goudie misrepresented himself, telling Texaco that the United States had commissioned the ships themselves, and that Texaco could have exclusive rights...
...A friend of President Bush's son Jeb, Goudie had raised money for Republican politicians, among them former Florida governor and current federal drug czar Bob Martinez...
...Going for the Gold Because of its meager finances, finding corporate sponsorship became a major preoccupation...
...The commercialism of the banner and the sparse turnout were appropriate symbols of the work of the Christopher Columbus Quincentenary Jubilee Commission, which seven years ago received Congress' mandate "to celebrate and commemorate" the five-hundredth anniversary of Columbus' arrival in this hemisphere...
...Goudie could not be reached for comment, but in the past he described his departure as voluntary and an attempt to protect the commission from harmful publicity...
...It's a golden pportuntry Souvenirs like this pin reflect the commission's "business mentality...
...But one commissioner questions whether the recent activity is any more than "damage control...
...The U.S...
...In December 1990, just prior to the release of a New York Times article detailing his financial mismanagement of both the commission and his own personal holdings, Goudie resigned...
...It includes the secretaries of commerce and state, the librarian of Congress, the archivist of the United States, and the chairs of the National Endowments for the Humanities and the Arts...
...tour of the Spanish replicas of the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, part of Spain's $500 million quincentenary celebration...
...The original chairman, Miami real estate broker and Cuban 6migr6 John VOLUME XXV, NUMBER 3 (DECEMBER 1991) 9Goudie, personified the Reagan administration's approach to the quincentenary...
...The majority of the commission's members are of Latino or Italian descent...
...But what was to be the commission's largest event ended instead in disaster, bringing Goudie's tenure to a swift end...
...The genius of America is that we have designed a system that can meld a great diversity of people...
...A lot of things need to be done and undone," says Ray, "to improve the status of Indians...
...Originally, the commission was to sell only materials and objects that are "substantially educational...
...Whenever I brought these issues up, they said they didn't have time to discuss them...
...They wanted their logo on the sails and jackets of the crew...
...The commission established a Columbus Scholars Program to fund college scholarships and summer sessions abroad for high school students...
...Jacob Bernstein is afreelance journalist who writes on the quincentenary and related issues...
...It was difficult for Texaco to understand," Ferrer says, "that others had to be able to participate...
...Jesuit priest Charles Polzer, the other academic on the commission, believes that the quincentenary could have been a chance to forge a new identity, one more in line with the Renaissance foundations of the United States...
...Second Wind...
...Spain, which views the quincentenary as a vehicle to promote itself as a modern nation and transform its conquistador image into that of positive contributor, was "deeply offended...
...But not even Donatelli's apple-pie vision manages to rise above the bumbling commercialism of the Jubilee Commission...
...In the end, perhaps the commission's travails and ineffectiveness, as Polzer puts it, "might have played to the good...
...The best we can do now," commission member Raymont says, "is help enhance what is already out there, draw official attention and recognition through the commission...
...REPORT ON THE AMERICAS amended to establish the "Christopher Columbus Quincentenary licensing group," and authorize the commercial use of the commission's logo...
...Most of these people are businessmen and they really don't give a damn...
...My God, what are they doing...
...But the appointees to the commission appeared ideally suited to that task...
...Curiously, Executive Director Kuhn insists that Texaco remains an official sponsor...
Vol. 25 • December 1991 • No. 3
