Time - Man of the Year/Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso/moy/081092/08109929.000

Text File | 1993-04-08 | 4KB | 78 lines

                                                                                COVER STORY, Page 37

THE DOOMSDAY BLUEPRINTS

Grab That Leonardo!


By Ted Gup/Washington


    One of the most difficult challenges facing doomsday planners
was deciding what cultural treasures should be saved. In 1950
the National Gallery of Art began construction of a $550,000
facility on the grounds of Randolph-Macon Woman's College in
Lynchburg, Va., as a safe haven for works of art. Funded by a
private trust, the windowless structure had storage areas for
sculptures and screened partitions to protect paintings. Nearby
was a three-bedroom cottage, fully furnished and complete with
china, silverware and napkins -- ready for the curator to move
in and oversee the collection. Several former gallery executives
recall that for years 2 1/2-ton trucks were kept in the
gallery's garage and driveways to transport the artworks in the
event of a threatened attack. Each week security staff would
start the trucks' engines and make sure the gas tanks were full.
By the early 1970s the plan had fallen into disfavor. "It lost
its appeal when Lynchburg became more of a likely bombing target
because of some industrial development," recalls Charles
Parkhurst, the National Gallery's former assistant director.

    Between 1979 and 1981, a government task force called the
Cultural Heritage Preservation Group met to draw up priority
lists. The Library of Congress's "Top Treasures Inventory"
includes a Gutenberg Bible, the Gettysburg Address and various
papers of James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and George Mason. For
the National Archives, which is seven blocks from the White
House, the single most precious item would be the Declaration
of Independence, followed by the Constitution and the Bill of
Rights. Though the National Archives building has a 55-ton
steel-and-concrete vault on the premises, the scenario calls for
the evacuation of these and other documents, probably by
helicopter, to an underground facility, if there is adequate
warning time. A second group of papers would leave the capital
by truck sometime after the so-called Freedom Documents of Group
I had reached safety. Among the Group II materials: the log of
the U.S.S. Monitor, medical records relating to President
Lincoln's assassination, the Japanese surrender documents and
an 1804 map of Lewis and Clark's trek across North America. The
National Gallery had determined that it needed only six crates
to hold the most important items. The first scheduled to be
rescued: Leonardo da Vinci's Ginevra de' Benci. Other works
include paintings by Jan Vermeer, a postcard-size depiction of
St. George and the Dragon by Rogier van der Weyden, and
Raphael's Alba Madonna. Initially, plans called for the
paintings to be taken to Mount Weather and hung on the walls
there, arranged not by artist or period but by the size of the
canvas. Curators were worried, however, that the site's
humidity would destroy the paintings. Victor Covey, then the
gallery's senior conservator, designed an ingenious lightweight
metal container on wheels that one person could roll through the
gallery and, within minutes, gathup the 18 or 19 most prized
paintings, then slip them into designated slots. Inside the
container was a tool chest with devices for removing the
paintings from the walls swiftly, as well as flashlights and a
waterproof signboard showing the location of each picture. When
the lid was closed, the container would be sealed with gaskets.
Bags of chemicals inside would stabilize the humidity, which was
to be constantly monitored by external and internal devices.
Once at Mount Weather, the container was to remain sealed until
the danger had passed and it could be returned safely to
Washington -- assuming, of course, there was anything left of
the city.