Road Show for a Relic?

Massachusetts Democratic Senator Teddy Kennedy thought he had a fine idea. Why not move the U.S.S. Constitution-"Old Ironsides"-from its berth at Boston Naval Shipyard's Pier 1 to New York next summer so that millions visiting the World's Fair could see the famed frigate?

But no sooner had Teddy floated his notion at a Boston news conference than he was caught up in a battle almost as fierce as that in which the Constitution sank the British warship Guerriere in 1812. Protested Massachusetts' Republican Senator Leverett Saltonstall: "We are proud of Old Ironsides, and she belongs in Boston." Said Boston Mayor John Collins: "There are too many risks in moving the vessel to New York." Cried the Boston Record-American: "The Constitution is too sacred a relic of our heritage to make it a road show." Joining the protests were the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, the New England Council of the V.F.W., officials of Boston's historic Freedom Trail Committee, and the state's Navy Mothers.

Surprised but not abashed by all the fuss, Kennedy took his major critics to lunch. He tactfully refrained from telling his home state that Old Ironsides belongs to the whole U.S., even though she has been a historic shrine in Boston Harbor since 1909. Her renovation in the late '20s was aided by the pennies of schoolchildren across the nation, and the U.S. Navy has since manned and maintained her at an annual cost of about $35,000. But he did wield a secret weapon: his older brother's personal interest in moving the 165-year-old vessel.

Teddy explained that the President heartily approves of "Operation Sail," a private but State Department-endorsed project in which sailing ships from some 21 nations would race across the Atlantic-and help publicize the Fair. To prove his case, the Senator produced a statement from the President. "I am looking forward eagerly to Operation Sail," it said. "The sight of so many ships gathered from the distant corners of the world should remind us that strong, disciplined and venturesome men still can find their way safely across uncertain and stormy seas." Jack would like to catch that sight, said Teddy, from the decks of Old Ironsides, anchored near the Statue of Liberty.

That, plus the Navy's assurance that the Constitution would be transported safely in a floating drydock, was all that was needed to produce a ceasefire. As though the whole project were already a certainty, the Boston Globe bannered:

PRESIDENT TO REVIEW WORLD FLEET ON OLD IRONSIDES AT N.Y. FAIR.

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