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DULUTH NEWS-TRIBUNE
Copyright (c) 1998, Duluth News-Tribune
DATE: Saturday, January 31, 1998
PAGE: 01A
By Daniel Bernard/News-Tribune staff writer
THE CARLSON FACTOR
MINNESOTA'S GOVERNOR IS THE USS DES MOINES PROJECT'S TOP CHAMPION -- BUT HIS STYLE MAY BE ITS BIGGEST LIABILITY
ST. PAUL -- If the USS Des Moines comes to rest on Duluth's waterfront instead of in the Navy's scrap heap, the save will be credited to one person more than any other. By proposing $14 million in state aid, Minnesota Gov. Arne Carlson resurrected the hope of bringing the decommissioned Navy cruiser to town when the concept's most diehard supporters had given up.
''I'd compare it to having a loved one that's been diagnosed with terminal cancer,'' said longtime project supporter Lance Reasor of Duluth. ''And after many months, you get the doctor's report that in fact, the cancer's been arrested and the signs of success look good.''
Yet if the project collapses in coming weeks in a Duluth referendum and a budget debate in the Legislature, the blame, too, may be placed on Carlson over anyone else.
Some in Duluth saw haste and arrogance in how aggressively the governor advanced the project without the city's blessing. Local officials and project opponents say Carlson could face a backlash of his own making.
The perception that Carlson would ignore Duluthians' drive through the project even if most Duluthians opposed it ''affected the whole mood of the community,'' said Duluth City Council President Ken Hogg.
''We would have had divisiveness about this project in any event,'' Hogg said. ''But the (media) reports that he was going to have the project here regardless . . . they energized those who oppose the Des Moines and gave them more determination. At the same time people who might have been more upfront about their support have stayed quiet because they don't want to be associated with that attitude.''
Duluth Mayor Gary Doty, a project supporter, said he's optimistic that the city's March 4 advisory referendum will rise or fall on the merits of the project, not on Carlson's personality. Still, Doty acknowledged, Carlson's approach may have inflamed the opposition.
''There are some, myself included, that believe he'd have been much more effective had he said, 'I have a project I think would be good for Duluth, let's sit down and talk about it and get some input from the community,' '' Doty said. ''He didn't do that. I think there are a number of people who were perhaps in the middle of the road who, simply because of that approach, have turned against the project.''
As Carlson renewed his push for the memorial this week, he said he wouldn't apologize for his determination to leave a lasting tribute to the World War II generation.
''People should be celebrating the idea of honoring those who lived through World War II, this generation which is in the process of passing on,'' Carlson, 63, said in an interview Wednesday in his office in the Capitol.
''I'm being put in the position of almost having to apologize,'' Carlson said incredulously. ''No. I didn't run for governor to react to everybody else's requests. I didn't forfeit my right to initiate and propose.''
Carlson reacts angrily to those in Duluth who say a warship would be a symbol of violence and inappropriate as a tribute.
''I'm sorry,'' Carlson said loudly, ''but those peacenik groups would not exist if it weren't for the fact that hundreds of thousands of young people died . . . The disconnect is not with me and the Des Moines. The disconnect is with those peace groups not understanding that their lives exist because those veterans put their lives on the line.''
Told that not all Des Moines opponents are peace activists, and that some are veterans, Carlson softened.
''I'm sure that there are a lot of good reasons to oppose it. The real question is, 'Why not?' '' Carlson said, sighing. ''I think it's just a worthwhile project. I'm sorry it got blown up into this enormous controversy.''
Inspiration
Carlson's interest in the project was a surprise to many. Last August, when his support was made public, the Twin Ports already had debated for the better part of a decade whether St. Louis Bay should host a retired Navy ship, and Carlson had not been a player.
Project supporter Reasor, an ex-Navy man who joined the ship effort in 1987, remembers talking to the governor during a stop in Grand Rapids four years ago. Carlson told Reasor the idea sounded great but asked where the money would come from (according to Reasor's recollection; Carlson doesn't recall the meeting).
The price tag then was under $2 million, but the state budget was in deficit. Private fund-raising faltered. The Duluth City Council voted against asking for aid for the ship. In July 1996, supporters gave up on the project.
But in recent months, Carlson's thoughts turned to the World War II generation. He said he realized vets deserve a tribute they're too humble to ask for.
The Republican governor was 7 when the United States entered World War II. He didn't serve in the military, but he remembers the sacrifice his Bronx neighbors showed during rationing, and the pride his father took in being the local air-raid warden. At 18, Carlson received a scholarship in memory of fellow graduates who died in battle. The list of their names was 100 pages. Carlson cried.
By 1997, the state budget had moved from deficit to surplus. For the first time in Carlson's tenure, the two-year bonding bill before the Legislature could be used for something extra, not just for emergencies. Since Carlson leaves office at the end of 1998, this will be the last list of state-funded projects he can influence.
It was about last February when Carlson witnessed his 14-year-old daughter learning about World War II. Via the Internet, a veteran told her about his experiences fighting the Japanese on the island of Iwo Jima. Carlson was touched and mentioned the experience later in two speeches on the Des Moines.
By most accounts though, his thoughts turned to the USS Des Moines thanks to the persistence of a state trooper, Lt. David Stout of Two Harbors. A supporter of the project since about 1994, Stout was assigned to chauffeur Carlson's wife Susan around the Duluth area in early March. He handed her a photo of the 51-year-old Navy ship and asked her to talk up the project with her husband.
On Wednesday, Carlson recalled the photo as ''the first time I really paid attention to'' the Des Moines. Stout faxed Carlson information on the proposal on March 10. Two days later, Carlson wrote the Secretary of the U.S. Navy that he was interested in acquiring the Des Moines via the 1998 bonding bill.
It's possible Carlson had the Des Moines on his mind a little before Stout's intervention. Reasor said he had a phone conversation with Carlson aide Bernie Omann some three weeks before Stout's chauffeuring assignment during which Omann said the governor wanted to look at funding the Des Moines project through the 1998 bonding bill. Stout confirmed that Reasor had told him about the phone conversation around that time. Carlson was out of town on Friday, and aides said it's hard to pinpoint when the inspiration took but that it grew over several months.
At any rate, the idea didn't move much until July, when Carlson toured the USS Intrepid in New York City, a World War II aircraft carrier that's part of a sea, air and space museum. Carlson said it was like history come alive. That trip solidified his interest in bringing a Navy ship to Minnesota, said Carlson's legal counsel, Tanja Kozicky.
Consultation
Carlson talked to Doty. Their staffs talked with each other and with the Duluth and Twin Cities veterans organizers who had worked for years to get the ship. It was some time though before Carlson talked to Duluth's city councilors, its legislators or its public.
''People have come up to me and said they might have supported the project if Arne Carlson had said, 'Let's talk about it. Let's get some public input.' '' said Duluth's Jack Burklund, 52, an ex-Marine and a spokesman for the Coalition to Stop the USS Des Moines. 'If he had . . . I think a lot of those people would not be opposing the project who now are.''
Des Moines opponents may say it's unfair for a state-level official to take the lead when the changes will be so noticeable on a local level. Carlson retorts that it's unfair for one city to monopolize control of a waterfront that belongs to the whole state. Especially when a state report last year showed Northeastern Minnesota gets more in state aid than it pays in state taxes.
When Duluth officials simultaneously are asking for millions in state aid to repair shipping facilities in the port, Duluth Seaway Port Authority officials ''sell the port as a statewide facility,'' Carlson said. ''They don't say that our funding will come exclusively from Duluth.' ''
Carlson had argued that a statewide project doesn't call for a local referendum. But now that one is scheduled, he said he hopes Duluth voters realize the stakes.
''Right now, the President and Congress and his cabinet are contemplating what to do with Iraq. One of those options is war,'' he said. ''They're going to have to discuss the risk of loss of life, and whether that risk is worth taking to avoid what could be a larger risk. It's a tough choice.
''For a 70-year-old person who fought in World War II, one of the things he's very sentimental about is, 'Will other people appreciate what I went through?' I don't understand why any society would want to deny its young people an understanding of what happens when you do have war. That's the real question that people have to answer when they go to the referendum -- do they want the kids to understand what war is, the enormous impact of it, and how it should only be a last resort.''
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