SOS for A National Treasure: The SS United States
Photo Courtesy of the Associated Press
America’s national flagship, the SS United States, is being listed for sale after more than a decade on the Philadelphia waterfront. This means there’s a good chance she’ll be broken up and sold for scrap – an unacceptable fate for a vessel that served as America’s Cold War ambassador-at-sea, the perfect embodiment of U.S. power and efficiency.
This legendary passenger ship sailed from New York to Europe and other destinations from 1952 to 1969. Its manifests listed U.S. and foreign presidents, a multitude of A-list celebrities, and a generation of leaders in business, diplomacy, culture, and the arts. (Bill Clinton and future members of his cabinet were introduced to each other on the SS United States in 1968, while sailing for England to pursue their Rhodes Scholarships.)
(Read this piece in its entirety at The Philadelphia Inquirer)
Editor’s Note: Dan McSweeney is a SIPA alumnus, and is a Marine officer and vice president of the SS United States Conservancy.
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It seems to me that fixing up – rehabilitating, perhaps turning into a combination hotel/tourist attraction/convention space – the old girl would be a perfect “stimulus” project.
Although I’m philosophically opposed to government becoming the “answer” to all situations such as this, it seems to me that it’s not a stretch to call the SS United States a national historical “property” and thus – to my mind at least – government financing and perhaps “ownership” and operation becomes a possible solution in this particular case.
BILL
The United States Coast Guard ought to buy it. The publicity could easily serve to draw attention to our maritime role as well as our roles that pertain to safety, security, education, and in protecting citizens from harm. (Reference 9/11, Katrina and elsewhere). Active and Reserve are military — a fact that is not well known — and the Auxiliary is voluntary civilian. As such it is neither military nor law enforcement. This fact makes it no different from any other non-profit. (This is even less well-known than the fact that Active and Reserve are military.) It is too bad our budget better resembles starvation.
Maybe the Air Force can buy it. Their budget is sufficient to buy aircraft for the CAP — whose mere existence is optional. As a congresionally mandated agency, the USCG Auxiliary is not optional.
In any case, she belongs in the U.S. and she should remain intact as long as she can be maintained in seaworthy condition. When she is no longer seaworthy, she deserves a dignified burial at sea as an artificial reef or conversion to a museum. These things, if for no other reason than her name. That discussion exists is embarrassing.