National Historic Site, established on September 30, 1965. In 1993, the memorial was surveyed by the Smithsonian Institution as part of its Save Outdoor Sculpture! program, and it was deemed "well maintained". The memorial is owned and maintained by the National Park Service (NPS), an operating unit of the United States Department of the Interior. Controversy and opposition Pike's memorial has often stirred controversy throughout its history, beginning with the GAR's lobbying efforts against its erection to protesters arguing it honors a traitor and racist. Starting in the 1990s, there was renewed interest in removing the statue. In late 1992, members of the LaRouche movement, including civil rights activist and Lyndon LaRouche's vice-presidential candidate James Bevel, began a series of protests demanding the memorial be removed, citing Pike's alleged links with the KKK. During one such event, LaRouche supporters draped Pike's statue with a KKK pointed hat and gown. Bevel stated: "One way or the other, this statue is coming down. Either the statue will be taken down gracefully, or it will be torn down." The protesters sought a congressional resolution to have the statue removed and replaced with a monument inscribed with the Declaration of Independence. Historian and LaRouche activist Anton Chaitkin called the statue a "monument to terrorism" and members of the Council of the District of Columbia petitioned to have the statue removed. Michael Farquhar, a former writer and editor at The Washington Post, called Pike a "blustering blowhard, a feeble poet, a laughable hypocrite, a shameless jingoist, a notoriously insubordinate military officer, and yes, a bigot with genocidal inclinations". John W. Boettjer, then managing editor of the Scottish Rite Journal, wrote a rebuttal op-ed in The Washington Post in defense of the memorial and pointed out that only an Act of Congress could result in the statue's removal. Boettjer stated: "[Pike] received a full pardon from the federal government for his service in the Civil War as a Confederate general. There is not a jot of reliable proof that Albert Pike was ever a member, much less an officer, of the Klan." He also claimed a LaRouche video promised the Middle East conflict would be solved and World War III averted if the statue was removed. In December 1992, the Washington, D.C., city council passed a resolution, sponsored by Charles Urdy, asking for the statue to be removed. The weekly protests by LaRouche supporters continued into