Veteran-Congressman blasts the exhibit: "In 1943, I left the United States for the Pacific theater as an 18-year-old Army Air Force recruit prepared to defend my country against one of the most brutal aggressors of our time. "AFA Says Enola Gay Revisions Must Go Further" In other words, the 'American perspective' must be incorporated throughout.". AFA Resolution: "But further improvements can and must be made in the main exhibit. " is an insult to all veterans." "They were armed with bamboo spears, bows and arrows, and kotchas, a kind of lethally shaped garden hoe."
"They Would Have Fought to the Death," Wall Street Journal,, A17. Veterans respond in letters to the editor: "Hiroshima Bomb Display Still Distorts History," New York Times, 09/10/94, 1:18. taken overall the exhibition still lacks balance and context." MEMO TO: Publisher, Magazine Staff Correll's detailed response to the third draft: "the museum still has an attitude. It is just one of a collection of protest letters from early summer through the end of the year by such organizations as American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, American Ex-Prisoners of War, 20th Air Force Association, The Military Order of the World Wars, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Exchange Club of Capitol Hill, Retired Enlisted Association, American Legion, Daedalians, Retired Officers Association, Confederate Air Force, Jewish War Veterans.įirst batch: second batch. To do so would impugn the motives of people whose service to this nation, and to the human race for that matter, was honorable in every sense of the word." But we cannot allow the Enola Gay exhibit to become judgmental in any way. No one is suggesting that we turn our backs on the victims that all war creates. Some go so far as to meet and embrace their former adversaries as if to say we are all one in the eyes of God. Poignant protest letter to Harwit from Jesse Brown, Secretary of Veterans Affairs: "Most of the many hardened combat veterans I know make peace with their enemies. Correll, Air Force Magazine, 09/94, 58ff. Air Force Magazine publishes its second major article: "The Enola Gay exhibit still lacks balance and still is emotionally charged, but the Smithsonian says the plans are final." "The Last Act at Air and Space," by John T. Yet the same controversy flares anew briefly in 2003 when the plane is moved to a permanent home in the new National Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport."FullText" links provide a connection to electronic or print copies provided by the Lehigh Libraries and other services, such as electronic abstracts and interlibrary loan requesting.
The controversy over how the Enola Gay should represent history gradually becomes history itself. Retrospects and reflections on the controversy following the opening of the new exhibit. In the period before the new exhibit opens, the group of historians calls for national teach-ins in protest, Smithsonian damage control includes a conference on museums in a democratic society at the University of Michigan, and Martin Harwit resigns just before two days of hearings begin in the Senate. Organized opposition, now public - including the American Legion, members of Congress, and World War II veterans of all stripes - to the direction of the Smithsonian exhibit mounts, forcing several more drafts, none of which satisfies the critics.Ī 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 acceptable to the critics, and new Smithsonian Secretary Michael Heyman admits the museum made a mistake, cancels the exhibit, and plans a new, uncontroversial one. The Smithsonian proposal to mark this important anniversary as a "crossroads" - consonant with a new Smithsonian philosophy of museumship by Secretary Robert McCormick Adams and NASM Director Martin Harwit - is unsuccessfully questioned privately by the Air Force Association, led by John T. Experience the evolution of the Enola Gay controversy by reading through a chronological list of documents divided into five rounds: The exhibit marking the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II featuring the refurbished B-29 Enola Gay proposed by the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum resulted in fierce controversy over how history should represent dropping an atom bomb on Japan.