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"One doesn't make personnel decisions in the heat of the moment," he said.īut the Smithsonian's board, yielding to the pressure, decided to all but scrap the Enola Gay exhibit, eliminating all of the 10,000-square-foot display except for the plane's restored fuselage and a small plaque. A group of historians vigorously defend the museum, but a dispute over the number of lives saved by dropping the bomb dooms negotiations for an exhibit. Heyman said he would complete a management review but declined to say whether he would call on Mr. The Enola Gay controversy became a cautionary for historians and museums their expertise, interpretations, and freedom of expressing history were questioned.
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It contained several major components of the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber used in the atomic mission that destroyed Hiroshima, Japan. Harwit's immediate resignation or dismissal. This past exhibition, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, told the story of the role of the Enola Gay in securing Japanese surrender. In January, 81 members of the House of Representatives wrote a letter to Mr. The petition advances the idea that the display of the B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, as one of the 200 airplanes in the center, should be used to stimulate a national discussion of U.S. But veterans groups, which had long pushed the Smithsonian to exhibit the bomber's fuselage, and later some members of Congress, criticized the exhibit's scripts, saying they were too sympathetic to the Japanese and ultimately an insult to the American troops who had fought and died in the Pacific.Ĭurators' repeated efforts to rewrite the scripts failed to satisfy the veterans groups or the lawmakers and provoked criticism from historians who said the exhibit was becoming inaccurate and politicized.