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1. That the HMSG relinquish its claim to both the existing "special collections" and the comparable material in the bequest on the understanding that the Smithsonian´s central administration will allocate this material to such other Smithsonian museums as appear to it most appropriate.

2. That the Smithsonian restore the HSMG to the position in which it would have been if Mr. Hirshhorn's gift of $1,000,000 had been (a) reserved--as originally intended--for acquisitions and (b) maintained as an endowed fund.

These might be some of the advantages to such an approach:

1. It recognizes that these "special collections" objects differ from the recent European and American fine arts material in the HSMG collection to the extent that (a) they are of both scientific and aesthetic interest, and (b) they are in many cases of a type subject to export and/or import restrictions which make the future collecting of comparable objects problematical.

2. Having certifiably been owned by Mr. Hirshhorn prior to 1957, the material [[underlined]] now [[underlined]] in the HMSG (and even, possibly, much of that in the bequest) constitutes an unusual pool of material guaranteed to meet the eligibility requirements of the Acquisitions Policty adopted by the Smithsonian Regents on May 9, 1973, i.e., it consists of objects that were neither illegally exported nor unscientifically excavated after that date. As such, they may have a greater value to the Institution than some otherwise comparable body of material as to which no such date can be firmly established.

3. Without the need to allocate this material among the Smithsonian's museums on the basis of their relative abilities to provide fair compensation, it would be possible for the Smithsonian´s central administration to direct a larger portion of the HMSG's Benin holdings--their estimated value now appears in the vicinity of $1,250,000--to the Museum of African Art. Confined to what it thought it could afford, that Museum has currently designated as its choices for acquisition a group of only five objects that were recently appraised at $322,000. The Museum's director has, however, expressed her interest in a far larger group ot these pieces if compensation did not have to be involved.

4. In addition to strenghtening the holdings of the NMNH, the Museum of African Art, and the Freer, this approach would permit the HMSG to commerce and expaned program of acquisitions much sooner thatn would be the case if it had