ABSTRACT
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Steering Committee, headed by Jan Scruggs, John Wheeler, and Bob Doubek, still faced the tricky problem of what kind of memorial to build. The central problem facing the committee through the last half of 1980 was how to select a jury who would in turn select the winner of the competition. One possibility was to impanel a jury of art professionals along with some Vietnam veterans, Gold Star mothers, and relatives of those still missing in action. During the succeeding months, the "hostage crisis" became a significant and highly symbolic issue in the presidential campaign. Jim Webb resigned from the National Sponsoring Committee in support of Carhart, as did Admiral James Stockdale, the senior prisoner of war in Hanoi during the war and a winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor. The Vietnamese government extended an invi-tation to Vietnam Veterans of America: they would issue visas for Bobby Muller and three others to visit Hanoi.
