Duty, Not Luxury, at the Smithsonian

Much has been written in The Post about the travel and leave of W. Richard West Jr., the founding director of the National Museum of the American Indian [front page, Dec. 28; letters, Dec. 31]. As a former director of the National Museum of American History, I'd like to add perspective and some facts to this story.

The job of director of a national museum of living cultures requires travel. In particular, the National Museum of the American Indian was mandated by Congress to represent indigenous peoples throughout this hemisphere, so interchange with institutions with similar missions in and beyond this hemisphere is essential to doing the job. West's chairmanship of the American Association of Museums and his service as vice president and member of legal and ethics committees of the International Council of Museums demonstrate that his colleagues in the field welcomed his participation in developing new kinds of museums for previously underrepresented people, explaining U.S. cultural laws and helping to create protocols with Interpol to stem the tide of illicit trafficking in cultural properties.

The Post story reported that West, who is Cheyenne, had traveled "far from American Indian culture," which, apparently, is to be located somewhere in the West but not in New York or other cities where the world's work is done. But Indian people are our neighbors across this country and outside it, and living cultures of indigenous peoples are everywhere. This museum is about them, not about dead objects collected as loot, sitting in Washington.

No self-enrichment or conflict of interest has been reported; all of West's travel was third-party authorized and approved, and there were no first-class plane tickets. The director's job, his congressional mandate and his obligation to indigenous peoples required a lot of travel.

The National Museum of the American Indian was founded to be a new kind of museum -- a gathering, teaching and learning place -- not a mausoleum. The job of its director includes helping other institutions that honor (or ought to honor) living cultures. That means traveling to bring along new curators, educators and artists. The museum had no models to emulate; West went where efforts to create such models were underway or under discussion, as in Paris, the headquarters of the International Council of Museums, which exchanged assistance with the National Museum of the American Indian. These facts did not make it into The Post's story. (Disclosure: Over a 10-year span, I probably accepted a meal from West, paid for by the Smithsonian Institution, to talk museum business or raise money.)

The job of director of a new museum requires interchange with other teaching and research institutions -- meeting, lecturing, learning. And it requires raising money. So West served on university boards with other good citizens of common interests -- some of ample means. Under West's leadership, the museum raised $155 million, which helped pay for that bottle of wine, cut of beef and hotel room cited in the Post story.

West did what he was supposed to do: create a new museum about living indigenous peoples, raise money, train a good staff and build academic connections -- all of which required travel.

-- Roger G. Kennedy

Washington

The writer is director emeritus of the National Museum of American History and former director of the National Park Service.