First Museum Meeting

COPA – ASSASSINATION MUSEUM COMMITTEE MEETING

Dallas, Texas, November 21, 2000 – Tower Restaurant. 12:30 – 2 p.m.

Those Present (by invitation only) :

John Judge; Prof. Phil Melanson; T. Carter; Judge Joe Brown; Bill Kelly; Eugene Case.

During the lunch break between morning and afternoon COPA conferences, the COPA Museum Committee met informally over lunch to consider the feasibility of establishing a permanent Assassinations Museum in Washington D.C.

The idea stemmed from the Lost River Conference, held in West Virginia a month before, when John Judge suggested the idea and Eugene Case developed it further with  preliminary reports on estimates of costs based on figures obtained from existing similar museums[Case reports 1 & 2 available upon request].

Before getting into the details however, there was a discussion of the history of political assassination, both in America and throughout world history. 

Judge Brown advised that such a museum should include such a history of assassination, and that it should also be a library, a respository of documents and a Study Center for researchers and scholars.

 There was a general agreement that if established, there is certainly enough historical material as well as public interest to sustain such a museum and study center.

Location and Finance appeared to be the two primary points considered.

Location: The target area would be in Washington D.C., within the North-West corner of the Capitol Hill Historic District, between 1^st Street (Union Station-Postal Museum) and 10^th Street (Ford’s Theater-FBI) and Massachusetts Avenue.  The building would have a street level walk-in store and public displays, with backroom multi-media theaters and second floor archives, study and conference rooms. The space would be either leased in existing space or a currently unused warehouse will be renovated.

Finance: The total cost of the project [$4 million], spread over three to five years, would be instigated with a more detailed preliminary report [$10,000-4 months], and begin with a plea to a few wealthy individual and corporate sponsors and supplemented with many smaller donations from the independent research community and general public, as well as subscriptions to a periodical and quarterly reports. The internet will be used a primary vehicle to obtain new supporters and communicate among each other.

An initial fundraiser event will be scheduled for June 10, 2000 [The anniversary of the American University speech], with planning meetings held in D.C. in early January.