Stalin's sculptor reacts to news of bust's removal

The creator of a controversial bust of Joseph Stalin at the National D-Day Memorial on Wednesday called its removal this week “distressful,” but a decision he ultimately can support if it helps advance the site’s educational mission.

The foundation that operates the Bedford site on Tuesday announced that it would take down busts of Stalin and three other Allied world leaders, all sculpted by Richard Pumphrey, a Lynchburg College professor.

Foundation president Robin Reed said the organization plans to eventually relocate the busts to “a more appropriate venue” for interpretation on the site’s 88-acre grounds, though plans for that could be several years away.

“If the Memorial has made a decision to enhance and improve upon its educational mission by relocating several busts of Allied leaders, that is their prerogative,” Pumphrey said in a written statement to The News & Advance on Wednesday.

“However, if the portrait sculpture remains out-of-view for a long period of time and the reinstallation design and theme are not as strong as they are now, then it would appear the reinstallation has been a capitulation to the historical revisionists.

“And that would be very problematic.”

Stalin and a bust of Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek were taken down Tuesday; busts of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill will be removed by year’s end.

For 17 weeks the Stalin bust, installed in early June, stood at the Bedford memorial as a solemn image for veterans and visitors who viewed it as an intruder to grounds they consider sacred.

Since taking over in late June as president of the National D-Day Memorial Foundation, Reed has heard the constant pleas to take down the bust, but did not rush to make a decision.

The artwork’s removal Tuesday was not to appease protestors and is not permanent, Reed said. The Stalin controversy was a catalyst that led the memorial to consider new ways to present the two stories being portrayed at the site — the military operation itself and the political unfolding surrounding it.

U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello, D-5th District, said in a statement Wednesday that he welcomes the plan for relocating the busts as a positive step.

“I repeatedly and publicly called for this bust to be removed and it appears we are moving very much in the right direction,” Perriello said.

Details are unclear as to when and how the Soviet dictator’s statue will be seen again in Bedford. Reed said a committee will be formed to advise the memorial on how to reincorporate the statuary, among other issues.

The memorial’s announcement this week isn’t the answer some had hoped for.

“I really do not see where moving Stalin from one spot to another at the memorial changes anything,” said Annie Pollard, a Bedford County supervisor. “He should have never been placed there.”

Memorial leaders have said that Stalin’s inclusion was not meant to honor the reviled dictator who was responsible for the death of millions. The plaque that accompanied the bust reads: “In memory of the tens of millions who died under Stalin’s rule and in tribute to all whose valor, fidelity and sacrifice denied him and his successors victory in the Cold War.”

Since Stalin had a role in the political narrative linked with D-Day and contributed to its unfolding, memorial leaders and Pumphrey have said his bust was a necessary addition.

 Pumphrey has said Stalin was a terrible person and he tried to capture the terror within the artwork.

James McSlarrow, a retired U.S. Army colonel who lives in northern Bedford County, said he feels the public has “overwhelmingly” stated its position that Stalin’s bust doesn’t belong at the memorial.

“I don’t know of a veteran, to tell you the truth, who has supported it,” McSlarrow said. “I don’t think it has a place anywhere (within the memorial). It is not necessary for education — and that’s the big claim.”

McSlarrow said he considers the memorial a place of honor for the soldiers who gave their lives in World War II and not for political leaders “who got away unscathed.”

Pollard said she has not visited the memorial since the bust was installed. She said the idea to keep the statue nearby is “nauseating”; the memorial, she said, is for the veterans who fought to stop Hitler and Stalin.

“We can only be hopeful that the memorial is doing the right thing to reinforce its educational mission,” Pumphrey said of the relocation plan in his statement.

“The jury is out.”