DATE: Sunday, May 11, 1997                  TAG: 9705110081

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A17  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES 

                                            LENGTH:   63 lines

MARITIME MUSEUM GROUP CRITICIZES TITANIC DISPLAY

In Memphis, the largest American showing of artifacts from the Titanic - bigger than the one that had its inaugural showing in Norfolk - is being denounced by the International Congress of Maritime Museums.

The organization, which has more than 300 members in 50 nations, says the company that mounted the exhibition of 300 Titanic objects has paid only lip service to conservation and has failed to deal with the decaying wreckage of the ocean liner and its artifacts in a responsible way.

Dr. Kevin J. Fewster, who is the organization's president and the director of the Australian National Maritime Museum, in Sydney, said the organization condemned the current display and opposed ``any efforts to show this exhibition'' unless the salvage company improved its preservation efforts.

``It is only a matter of time and money before the problems of Titanic arise with other sites,'' Fewster said in an interview, adding that leadership was needed to develop ethical guidelines for deep-sea recovery.

The museum organization, whose base moves with its presidency, has never before censured a display. It did so, Fewster said in a news release, only after working quietly with the salvage company for three years in a failed effort to raise standards.

George Tulloch, the president of the company - RMS Titanic of New York City - denied that conservation of the artifacts was inept or superficial and said that his company is simply working in stages as it acquires more money.

RMS Titanic owns the salvage rights to the famous shipwreck.

``Our No. 1 priority has been to conserve these objects and share them with the public,'' Tulloch said in an interview. ``After that comes the sharing of the data with scholars. We're very proud of the work we have done to preserve the memory and objects of the Titanic.''

``Titanic: The Expedition,'' a much smaller display than the one in Memphis, was on display at Nauticus in Norfolk from November through March. Officials had hoped to boost the maritime center's declining attendance.

Some were critical of the Norfolk display as well, saying it was too small.

Just over 55,000 people visited the Norfolk exhibit. Officials had hoped it would draw 150,000 to 250,000 people.

Beyond the Titanic, the museum organization is worried that a priceless record of the past will quietly disappear as salvors focus on hundreds of vanished ships, paying scant attention to science and archaeology.

``The Titanic is the world's best-known wreck site,'' Fewster wrote in the May-June issue of Museum News, a magazine of the American Association of Museums. ``So whatever happens with this site will undoubtedly set a precedent for the future direction of cultural heritage management and recovery in deep water sites across the world's oceans.''

A team of American and French scientists hunting the North Atlantic found the rusting hulk of the Titanic in 1985, about 2 1/2 miles down. The RMS Titanic financed recovery voyages in 1987, 1993, 1994 and 1996.

It has retrieved about 4,000 objects, stimulating the recent production of movies, cookbooks and exhibitions about the Titanic, which sank after it struck an iceberg in April 1912, killing more than 1,500 people. MEMO: Staff writer Steve Stone contributed to this report. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

ASSOCIATED PRESS

A New York-based salvage company has retrieved about 4,000 objects

from the wreck of the Titanic, which sank after it struck an iceberg

in April 1912, killing more than 1,500 people.

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