
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, December 19, 1993                   TAG: 9312190071
SECTION: NATL/INTL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: BURBANK, CALIF.                                LENGTH: Medium

DISNEY PARK IN DOUBT VA. OPPOSITION COULD SINK PLAN

The chairman of Walt Disney Co. warned that the company could change its mind about building its planned U.S. history theme park in Northern Virginia, saying Disney will back off unless Virginia legislators support taxpayer-financed improvements in roads and other infrastructure to support the park.

Disney chief Michael Eisner said that the company will wait to purchase land on which it holds options in Prince William County until it's clear opponents of the park will not prevail.

"We have to know that there is no chance that the special-interest groups could destroy it, and that the necessary private-public partnership has been completed," Eisner said. Disney could not afford to finance highway construction itself, he said, saying the cost would "crater" the company financially.

In an interview last week at Disney's headquarters here, Eisner, 51, also defended the company against criticism of some of its planned exhibits at the park, to be called Disney's America. He said the attacks were premature and "ludicrous." In addition, Eisner said a Disney executive misspoke last month when he predicted an exhibit on slavery would "make you feel what it was like to be a slave."

It would be "presumptuous," Eisner said, for anyone to claim to be able to convey what it felt like to be a slave.

The project was not designed "to plasticize the United States" or "to "Mickey Mouse' American history in the pejorative sense of the word that people sometimes use," Eisner said. Rather, its overall message will be that the United States "is the best of all possible places, this is the best of all possible systems."

Plans for the park, which is scheduled to open in 1998, have drawn mixed reaction in and around Haymarket, where Disney has options to buy 3,000 acres. The park would create jobs and could spur business development in Prince William County, but some local groups have objected that the accompanying construction, crowds and traffic will spoil the area's rural character.

"I've talked to legislators and the people down there and they say, `Oh, don't worry about these splinter groups and so forth,' " Eisner said. "I don't think you underestimate intelligent people with a cause. So, I do worry about them."

by CNB