August 18, 1999

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Panel Criticizes Board at Holocaust Museum

By IRVIN MOLOTSKY

WASHINGTON -- An outside panel of administrative experts has found that the effective operation of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum here has been stifled by "excessive involvement" of the museum's chairman and other board members who have encroached on the authority of the director.

The report was issued today by the National Academy of Public Administration, a nonprofit organization chartered by Congress to make Federal, state and local governments more effective. The study was made at the request of Representative Ralph Regula, an Ohio Republican who is chairman of the subcommittee that approves Federal money for the museum.

A member of the expert panel who studied the museum, Joel N. Bloom, said that while the report "seized on inadequacies," "it is a fabulous museum -- maybe the best history museum in the world."

Bloom, the president and director emeritus of the Franklin Institute Science Museum, said by telephone from Philadelphia that one of the major weaknesses of the Holocaust Museum was its failure to allow its director to act as a strong chief executive officer.

One reason, he said, is the reluctance of the museum's chairman, Miles Lerman, a Holocaust survivor and the driving force behind the establishment of the museum, to let go of the reins.

"He's a very devoted guy and gives all his energy," Bloom said of Lerman. "You need one kind of person to get a museum going and another kind to keep it going. It wouldn't have come true without people like him. Now that it's a mature institution, it has to take on different managerial techniques."

Sara J. Bloomfield, who became director of the museum after the study was under way, said today that some of the criticisms were valid and that the museum had begun acting on administrative policy changes even before the study. The involvement of board members in day-to-day activities had been recognized as a problem before the study, she said, adding that the report might "move us forward a little faster" toward solving the problem.

Ms. Bloomfield said that Lerman had not seen the report and would not be able to comment on it. But Representative Regula said that Lerman had seen the report last week and that he had generally agreed with the suggestions on running the museum and had begun putting new policies into effect.

For himself, Regula said of the report, "I think it's a fair evaluation of the system as it is."

The museum opened in 1993 and quickly became one of Washington's major tourist destinations. Its attendance is two million a year, and its spending this year is $53.6 million, of which $32 million was provided by the Federal Government.

The finding lent support to complaints by allies of Walter Reich, the museum's former director. His supporters contended last year that he had been unfairly ousted.

Mr. Reich said, "I do feel vindicated in my concern regarding the potential for political and diplomatic misuse of the museum."

He was referring to the presence of two State Department officials on the museum's board, or council. The study concluded, "The Presidential appointment of State Department officials as full council members may be inappropriate because conflicts of interest may result." That conclusion was an echo of an incident involving Yasir Arafat that embarrassed the museum and contributed to Reich's resignation.

The State Department officials had suggested that it would have been useful for Mr. Arafat, then visiting Washington, to see the horrors inflicted upon the Jews. Those who regarded Mr. Arafat as a terrorist said his presence would have been a travesty, and friends of Mr. Reich said the invitation had been made without his knowledge.

Mr. Arafat finally defused the situation by declining the invitation.

The expert panel also found that "there is an inadequate representation of non-Jews in general and of African-Americans and Latinos in particular" on the museum's board. It recommended that each board members [sic] be limited to a five-year term.

Rather than concern themselves with day-to-day activities, the report said, the chairman and the board should address policy issues like to what extent the museum should address the non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust" and how the museum might address contemporary genocides and crimes against humanity.