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[[underlined]] National Armed Forces Museum Advisory Board [[/underlined]]

The following report was presented by the Secretary for Mr. John Nicholas Brown, Chairman of the National Armed Forces Museum Advisory Board.

P. L. 87-186, enacted August 30, 1961, established the National Armed Forces Museum Advisory Board in the Smithsonian Institution. The Board was directed to "provide advice and assistance to the Regents...on matters concerned with the portrayal of the contributions which the Armed Forces of the United States have made to American society and culture." Among other functions, the Act provided for: (1) Presidential appointees to the Board and ex officio members; (2) the display of military exhibitions and the creation of a study center for scholarly research; (3) the survey of sites and buildings for the display of military objects; (4) authorization of heads of departments and agencies to transfer objects for exhibition purposes; and (5) to authorize appropriations for these purposes.

To aid in its investigation and survey of lands and buildings, the Advisory Board established criteria for use in consideration of potential sites. After studying fifteen such sites and embarking on several approaches to acquisition, the Advisory Board concluded that no completely adequate site was available for the major new museum contemplated in the Act. The requirement for a riparian location for naval exhibits and the need for access to the site by automobile traffic could not be satisfied by any site considered to be otherwise suitable.

As Chairman of the National Armed Forces Museum Advisory Board since its inception, Mr. Brown transmitted a report of these activities to