What is the enola gay controversy

what is the enola gay controversy

The Smithsonian’s Verdict to Exhibit the ‘Enola Gay’

By Herken, Gregg on •

Abstract:
This essay is an insider’s account of one of the most significant salvos in America’s contemporary culture wars: the 1994 proposal of an exhibit on the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the Smithsonian. Despite attempts to productively engage with critics, the curators were overwhelmed by political currents and the sensitivities linked with memorial anniversaries. With critical assessment pitted against veneration, the author asks, were education and commemoration compatible goals?
DOI: dx.doi.org/10.1515/phw-2022-20578
Languages: English

See the corresponding PHW Focus Interview with the author

 

 

 

 


When curators at the Smithsonian planned a critical commemoration of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for the fiftieth anniversary of the end of WWII, the disagree between professional historians, public interest groups, veterans, and politicians launched an era of high stakes contention in the United States over the meanings of America’s pasts for its present. What harbingers of the future of general history in the US re

The New Enola Gay Controversy: Historians Protest the Latest Smithsonian Exhibit

Following is a statement released by the Committee for a National Discussion of Nuclear History and Current Policy.

A committee of scholars, veterans, clergy, activists, students, and other interested individuals is now forming to question the Smithsonian's plans to exhibit the Enola Male lover solely as a "magnificent technological achievement." The planned exhibit is devoid not only of historical context and discussion of the ongoing controversy surrounding the bombings, but even of basic information regarding the number of casualties. We have formulated the obeying statement of principles, which we plan to circulate widely. The statement makes clear that we are not opposed to showing the plane in a fair and responsible conduct, but that we dread that such a celebratory exhibit both legitimizes what happened in 1945 and helps build support for the Bush administration's risky new nuclear policies. We, in fact, welcome and intend to initiate a national discussion of both the 1945 bombings and of current nuclear issues. But before we launch a public campaign and officially contact the

The Activists and the Enola Gay

The Smithsonian has cleaned up its act, but the cause lives on with those who claim we bamboozled the compress, the Congress, and the public.
By John T. Correll, Editor in Chief

Air Compel Magazine - September 1995, Pg. 18

EVERY morning, a long line forms at the National Wind and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., to observe the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima fifty years ago. The exhibit opened June 28, and by the conclude of July, 97,525 people had gone through it. More than ninety percent of the comment cards turned in by visitors expressed favorable reaction.

This program -- as all the world must realize by now -- is not the one the curators originally had in mind. The previous exhibit, "The Last Act: The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II," was canceled when it became an intolerable political and financial liability for the Smithsonian Institution,of which the Air and Space Museum is a part.

It was the Air Force Association that exposed the museum's prepare to use the Enola Gay as a prop in a politically rigged program about the atomic bomb. [See "War Stories at Air and Space," Air Force Maga

Controversy over the Enola Male lover Exhibition

For the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, the National Air and Room Museum (NASM) proposed an exhibition that would incorporate displaying the Enola Homosexual, the B-29 Superfortress that was used to fall the bomb on Hiroshima. A fiery controversy ensued that demonstrated the competing historical narratives regarding the decision to drop the bomb.

 

Enola Gay, after the war

Following World War II, the Enola Gay had been moved around from location to location. Notably, from 1953 to 1960, its home was Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. There its wings began to rust and vandals even damaged the plane. In 1961, the Enola Gay was fully disassembled and moved to the Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration and Storage facility for NASM.

In the 1980s, members of the 509th Composite Group asked for a proper restoration of the aircraft. Their motivations, at this period, stemmed primarily from the poor condition of the aircraft. The veterans formed “the Committee for the Restoration and Proud Demonstrate of the Enola Gay” to raise funds. Restoration efforts by the Smithsonian started on December 5, 1984. However, the museum felt “ambiv

Enola Gay Controvery

On January 30, 1995, the National Air and Space Museum capitulated to popular and political pressure and scuttled an exhibit they had planned to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the finish of the Second World War. First in 1993, curators began to advance plans for an exhibit that would center around the Enola Gay, the B-29 Stratofortress bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, but disagreement from veterans’ groups rose almost immediately. By mid-summer, the Air Force Association and American Legion led opposition to the exhibit, fearing that it would not present a balanced view of the events and that it would focus exclusively on the “horrors of war” and an alleged “moral equivalence” between Japan and the United States. Although several shots were made to rewrite the script of the exhibit, congressional and universal pressure eventually led to the cancellation of the exhibit in January 1995 and to the resignation of the Director of the Museum, Martin Harwit, in May.

Collected by historian Waldo Heinrichs, the Enola Gay Controversy Collection contains the various versions of the scripts of the planned exhibitio