How the Pentagon Got Its Shape

At age 73, the secretary of war was the elder statesman of Roosevelt's Cabinet, and was known for his dignity, wisdom and Yankee reserve. Stimson was, in the words of an officer on the War Department staff, "like the Rock of Ages." But he also was imbued with a deep streak of Old Testament temper. Under Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson had telephoned Stimson early the morning of Tuesday, July 22, to inform him about the building Somervell had dreamed up. Patterson, who along with Marshall had given Somervell his approval the day before, arrived at the secretary's headquarters in the Munitions Building, accompanied by Somervell, Brig. Gen. Eugene Reybold and Bergstrom. As they presented their case, the dubious Stimson found himself slowly drawn to the logic. The secretary examined the plans for the building, which struck him as being "on practical and simple lines." How long would it take to finish? Stimson asked. One year, Somervell promised. The efficiency of the War Department would improve 25 to 40 percent by having everyone under one roof, Stimson was told.

Finally, the secretary conferred his blessing. Sound it out with the House Appropriations Committee, and see what they think, Stimson told his visitors.

At a hearing that afternoon before Woodrum's subcommittee, the congressman invited Somervell to speak. Exuding confidence, Somervell presented his plan. The building would now be three stories high, instead of four, to better harmonize with its surroundings by Memorial Bridge. The cost would be $35 million, and that covered everything except parking lots for 10,000 cars.

"This thing would not come to pieces very easily, would it?" asked Rep. John Taber, a New York Republican.

"It certainly should not," Somervell assured him. "It should not ever come to pieces."

Somervell promised to begin construction in two weeks and finish in a year. As for the huge size, it was no time for restraint, the general told the congressmen. Somervell had sold them; the subcommittee unanimously approved funding for the new building, sending the recommendation to the full committee.

Stimson decided it was time to tell the president what was afoot. On Thursday, July 24, he told the president's military aide, Maj. Gen. Edwin "Pa" M. Watson, that he wanted to speak with Roosevelt after the afternoon Cabinet meeting about a new War Department headquarters in Arlington. "It has now reached the stage where the Appropriations Committee has heard of it, and Stimson wants you to know that he is not [the] author, but that the plan has a lot of merit," Watson reported to the president.

Somervell's proposal was reaching the president at an opportune time, as Roosevelt had concluded that the United States probably could not avoid war with Nazi Germany. Earlier that month, the president had agreed to take over the defense of Iceland from Britain. When the proposal was raised during the Cabinet meeting July 24, Roosevelt breezily approved the building. In exactly one week, Somervell had proposed constructing a building of unprecedented size and scale, produced preliminary plans, won the strong support of the War Department leadership, sold it to key congressional leaders, and received a green light from the president of the United States. Nothing, it seemed, could stop him.

IN JULY 1941, PIERRE L'ENFANT WAS SURELY ROLLING OVER IN HIS GRAVE. Gilmore D. Clarke, chairman of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, was certain of that. L'Enfant, the designer of Washington, was buried in a majestic site at Arlington National Cemetery overlooking the Potomac. It suddenly seemed that L'Enfant's view would be destroyed by the enormous new War Department headquarters Somervell was planning for just a few hundred yards below the major's tomb. Clarke was dumbfounded. "It is proposed to place this 'city' at the very portals of the Arlington National Cemetery, thus resulting in the introduction of 35 acres of ugly, flat roofs into the very foreground of the most majestic view of the National Capital that obtains . . . from a point near the Tomb of Major L'Enfant, the architect of Washington," he wrote soon after learning of the plan.

The Commission of Fine Arts was the keeper of L'Enfant's flame. Created by Congress in 1910, the commission carried no legal authority to block projects, but Congress generally followed the recommendations of the distinguished panel of architects, sculptors and landscape architects.

Clarke, a New York native, had a reputation as one of the nation's finest landscape architects and had helped design some of the country's first parkways. He was not a building architect, but that did not stop him from passing judgment on those who were. Clarke was accustomed to getting respect. But Somervell had not bothered to notify the commission about the massive new War Department building. When Clarke finally got word of what was afoot, the project had already been approved by the House of Representatives.

Clarke was livid. "It is inconceivable that this outrage could be perpetrated in this period of the history of the development of this City, a city held in the highest esteem by every citizen who visits it," he wrote in a letter to the Senate.