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the desired land. And on January 25, 1968, Congressman Michael J. Kirwan introduced House Bill H.R.14853 for the same purpose.

On August 23, 1968, while S.2510 and H.R.14853 were pending, there was enacted legislation which was to exercise a profound effect upon the viability of the Fort Foote-Smoot Bay site for National Armed Forces Museum Park purposes. This was the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968, under which the National Park Service was authorized to acquire the private lands needed for its intended parkway from Interstate Route 495 to Fort Washington. 

Within the approved taking lines for the Fort Washington Parkway there lay (with the exception of 126 acres) all the site which the Smithsonian, the National Park Service, and the National Capital Planning Commission had selected collaboratively for the proposed museum park. Thus, it appeared, by means of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968, there had been accomplished almost all that the Smithsonian was seeking to achieve via S.2510 and H.R.14853.

In view of this, the Smithsonian concluded it was advisable to make a new legislative proposal--one that would provide authority to establish a National Armed Forces Museum Park and to negotiate with the Secretary of the Interior for joint use of that portion of the previously-approved museum park site to be acquired under the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968. The Smithsonian concluded also that it would be better to forgo an attempt to acquire the privately-owned acreage lying outside the approved parkway taking lines. In January 1969, the Advisory Board endorsed and the Board of Regents approved submission to the 91st Congress of the proposed legislation and, that April, Congressman Frank Bow introduced House Bill H.R.10001 for that purpose.

But even before H.R.10001 could be introduced, there were taking place events such as to render it increasingly uncertain when, if ever, the Department of the Interior might be able to acquire those lands which lay within the Fort Washington Parkway taking lines and which were designated as the site of the proposed museum park and study center. The National Park Service, it is understood, found that available funds were