Udvar-Hazy Center, located outside of Washington, D.C.
The Enola Gay is now at home in the Steven F. Eventually, Congress canceled the exhibit.
When news of this “rounded approach” spread, controversy ensued. The museum also began to create an exhibit based around the plane that included Japanese accounts of the event as well. In 1994, the Smithsonian began the restoration of the Enola Gay, the infamous B-29 warplane that dropped “Little Boy” on Hiroshima.
The enola gay exhibit controversy series#
He said that "at a later date" he would consider holding a series of public symposia to examine these issues.įor now, he said, "it is time to move forward.Courtesy of Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Heyman also signaled that he is not overly enthusiastic about involving the museum in disputes regarding the strategic necessity or morality of dropping the bomb. To help avoid similar controversies, he said the museum together with the University of Michigan would conduct a forum in spring to discuss "appropriate ways for museums to handle controversial subjects." As to calls by nearly 100 lawmakers and veterans groups to fire Martin Harwit, the director of the Air and Space Museum, Heyman said that he would not take any "summary action" but would look at "management performance" at the Smithsonian's most popular museum, where the Enola Gay exhibit would have been held. "No amount of rebalancing could change the confusing nature of the exhibition." "In retrospect, I now feel strongly that despite our sincere efforts to address everyone's concerns, we were bound to fail," he said. Each revision of the script seemed to inflame the dispute instead of resolving it. Heyman admitted that the controversy was consuming most of his time and was interfering with more pressing work of the institution. Press secretary Mike McCurry said President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, "while believing firmly that academic freedom has its place," also felt that the concerns of veterans groups "had merit." The White House, which had remained silent on the issue, came out in support of Heyman but made conciliatory gestures to both sides. Jack Giese of the Air Force Association, representing 180,000 veterans, said he was "hopeful and encouraged" by yesterday's announcement but that he was withholding judgment until he could see the display promised by Heyman. 6, 1945, and another on Nagasaki three days later. casualties that would have resulted if the bomb had not been dropped.Īs originally planned, the display included a graphic account of the devastation caused by the bomb and discussion of the issues that influenced President Harry Truman's decision to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. military leaders exaggerated the number of U.S. "They were not looking for analysis, and, frankly, we did not give enough thought to the intense feelings such an analysis would provoke."īeginning almost a year ago, veterans groups criticized numerous features of the draft script for the planned exhibition: that it unfairly showed the United States as the main aggressor in the Pacific war, that it dwelled excessively on the suffering of the Japanese people and that it suggested that U.S. "In this important anniversary year, veterans and their families were expecting, and rightly so, that the nation would commemorate and honor their sacrifice," he said. At a packed press conference with most members of the museum's board of regents standing behind him, Heyman, the former University of California at Berkeley chancellor, said the museum erred in trying to combine a "historical treatment" of whether dropping the bomb was necessary with a commemoration of the end of World War II.