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Franklin D. Roosevelt has been dead for nearly 22 years, but it may take an other generation before anybody can decide on a suitable monument to him in Washington. The project began in 1959 with a nationwide competition that produced (out of 574 entries) a design by Sculptor Norman Hoberman for eight soaring concrete and marble tablets covered with Roosevelt quota tions. "Instant Stonehenge," hooted the critics, and the late President's family turned it down cold. Last week a second effort, by famed Architect Marcel Breuer, was brusquely and unanimous ly rejected -- this time by the Washington Fine Arts Commission. Breuer's design envisaged free-standing walls radiating from a central court yard (TIME, Dec. 30). "Pure geometry," he called it, and won approval from the family and the Roosevelt Memorial Commission. Not so the Fine Arts Commission, which must pass on all public construction in Washington. "Such a memorial requires the highest standards of artistic achievement and significance," said Commission Chair man William Walton. "The proposed design does not fulfill either criterion."

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