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[[underlined]] Designation of "National" Museums [[/underlined]]

The Secretary noted that two recent legislative actions have departed from the tradition of reserving the use of the word "national," when applied to museums, to elements of the Smithsonian Institution.  He added that the relative rapidity of these two measures could imply to some observers the the possibility of a trend.

The National Parks and Recreation Act of 1978 (P.L. 95-625) designated the organizations formerly known as the San Francisco Maritime Museum Association and San Francisco Historic Ships as the "National Maritime Museum."  The Museum, located in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, is under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service.

In 1979 P.L. 96-118, amendments to the Anadromous Fish Conservation Act, included a provision designating the new aquarium in Baltimore as the "National Aquarium at Baltimore."  The aquarium is under local jurisdiction and, unlike San Francisco, directly appropriated funds are not available to it.

Other Federal museums, which incorporate "national" in their titles, but are unrelated to the Smithsonian, also exist.  Chief among these are the National Atomic Museum at Albuquerque, a unit of the Department of Energy, and the Army's National Infantry Museum at Fort Benning.

Legislation is currently pending to establish a National Museum of the Building Arts and a National Center for Afro-American History and Culture, neither of which is envisioned as a Smithsonian museum.

The Regents discussed strategies for reaffirming the traditional use of the word "national" in the Smithsonian context.  The Secretary mentioned that it would be preferable for the Smithsonian, before additional instances