Vietnam Veterans Memorial Commission

• March, 1984: Ed Koch held a sparsely attended luncheon at Trump’s Grand Hyatt Hotel to discuss plans to raise funds for the New York Vietnam Veterans Memorial Commission. “‘Never have we had a war where we have treated our veterans so shabbily,’ Mayor Koch said yesterday, urging support of a $1 million fund drive by the New York Vietnam Veterans Memorial Commission. A person's stand on the war was ‘irrelevant, irrelevant,’ he told a skimpily attended luncheon in the Grand Hyatt Hotel run by the real-estate figures Maurice Paprin and Donald Trump. What was important is that, in caring for the Americans who fought in it, ‘we have not done what we should,’ the Mayor said. Only 25 people were at the meeting, but Mr. Koch said he expected a huge crowd at the big fund-raising event, a Red, White and Blue Gala on Memorial Day. Half the money will be used for a monument, the rest for a veterans' job program.” (New York Times, March 8, 1984)
• April, 1984: Donald Trump was a co-chariman of the New York Vietnam Veterans Memorial Commisison, but rarely participated in its meetings and told the other commissioners that he would host a fundraising benefit for the memorial at one of his properties in New York City. “His last appointment of the day is a committee meeting of the New York Vietnam Veterans Memorial Commission. […] Mr. Trump is the co-chairman, but he has not been to many of the meetings and, although they don't show it, some of the committee members are peeved. The meeting has already begun when he strolls in. There are written reports on the table about design contests and a fund-raising campaign for a memorial. A good deal of hand-wringing is going on over how in the world to raise even a small portion of the $1.4 million needed. The men are stating the need to energize that component of the campaign, to plug into that secor, to interface. Mr. Trump does not take off his coat and slouches in a chair. When he finally speaks up, he says that he is on the commission because the young men who went to Vietnam got a bad deal - which, about the worst thing that can happen to anyone.He then throws out the names of some people, friends of mine, whom they could probably tap for substantial contributions. Then, we're going to have the fund-raiser at Trump Tower, he says, punching through the canvas. I've called the White House. The President is coming, so we can raise the price of the 800 tickets from $500 to $1,000. That will just about put you where you want to be. ‘I have to be going,’ he says.” (New York Times, April 8, 1984)
• November, 1984: Members of the commission told reporters that Trump had only attended two of its twenty meetings, once at its inauguration and once while he was being profiled by a reporter. “One official of the Vietnam commission, who has attended all the meetings, maintains Trump has been to only two or three out of 20 meetings. This was confirmed by another member of the commission. The first time he attended a meeting was to launch the commission, one source says, and the second was when he arrived with a reporter who was profiling him. To this charge, Trump responds: ‘That's interesting. I'll resign then. They're very small thinkers. They're stockbrokers that were in Vietnam and they don't have it.’ He also said that he was never asked to be a working member of the commission, but simply to lend his name.” (Washington Post, November 15, 1984)
• February, 1985: Trump pledged that he would donate $1 million of his own money to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Commission, but only if the other commissioners could raise $1 million in less than three months. “With the 10th anniversary of the end of America's role in Vietnam approaching, the money-raising campaign for the city's Vietnam Veterans Memorial Commission has been renewed. Yesterday, Donald J. Trump, the developer who is co-chairman of the commission, pledged to contribute $1 million if the commission could match it with money from other donors by May 7, the anniversary. Brig. Gen. Peter M. Dawkins of the Army, retired, a Vietnam veteran who is an executive at Shearson Lehman Brothers Inc., is commanding the campaign, which will have to raise an average of $15,000 a day to meet Mr. Trump's offer. About $800,000 had been raised before Mr. Trump's offer, much of it for building a memorial at American Express Plaza, the former Jeanette Park, at Coenties Slip, between Water and South Streets. It will be dedicated on May 7. The memorial itself will cost $500,000. The rest of the money raised by the commission is to be used to create a jobs program for Vietnam veterans.” (New York Times, February 27, 1985)