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

DATE: FRIDAY, May 20, 1994                   TAG: 9405230118
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

CIVIL WAR CHRONICLER OPPOSES THEME PARK

Ken Burns, producer of public television's "The Civil War" series, said Thursday that locating a Disney theme park near a historic battlefield in Virginia could destroy a place "where the ghosts of our collective past still have the power to mesmerize."

Burns said he was joining other historians in urging Disney to build elsewhere even though he, too, is in the business of popularizing history "and, in fact, ... working with Disney on another unrelated history project," he said.

The Disney Co. said Burns was under contract, for an undisclosed sum, as a consultant for a movie about baseball.

Burns issued his statement through Protect Historic America, a group of writers and historians who joined last week in asking Disney not to build the park at the planned site, near the Civil War battlefield at Manassas, 35 miles from Washington.

Led by Truman biographer David McCullough, they said the project would lead to such sprawl, traffic and pollution as to threaten many historic sites in Virginia, including the homes of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

John Dryer, Disney's vice president for corporate communications in Burbank, Calif., said if the historians had their way they would shut down 8,000 to 10,000 square miles of Virginia to commercial development.

"I find it curious that people who earn their living as popular historians, writing for the general public, and who have total freedom of expression would deny someone else their freedom of expression," Dryer said.

In his statement, Burns said, "This project has the possibility of ... sanitizing and making `enjoyable' a hugely tragic moment of our past."

by CNB