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News :: Nukes |
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Enola Gay Exhibit Won't Be Changed |
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by Jacqueline Trescott
(No verified email address) |
12 Nov 2003
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For more information, follow the link at the bottom of the story to the Committee for a National Discussion of Nuclear History and Current Policy |
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The director of the National Air and Space Museum yesterday rejected suggestions that the new display of the Enola Gay, the airplane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, be altered to include information on the number of victims of the attack and a discussion of the politics of nuclear weapons.
Gen. John R. "Jack" Dailey, the director of the museum, said he wasn't changing his mind that the spare placard, which provides vital statistics of the plane and a brief description of its historic role, was correct.
"To be accurate, fair and balanced, inclusion of casualty figures would require an overview of all casualties associated with the conflict, which would not be practical in this exhibit," Dailey said. Referring to an earlier exhibit of part of the plane, he said, "We are confident this approach, similar to one seen by nearly 4 million people, is the right one and, therefore, we have no plans to change the exhibit."
The organizers of a petition asking Dailey to expand the information about the historic plane said the museum was squandering an opportunity.
"I was disappointed by the Smithsonian response," said Peter J. Kuznick, a history professor at American University, who organized the Committee for a National Discussion of Nuclear History and Current Policy. "I see this as a missed opportunity to educate the American people. Nuclear policy is a very important issue in our past and a critical issue now."
The museum has placed the huge B-29 Superfortress, totally restored for the first time in 43 years, in its companion museum, the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles International Airport. That facility, which will eventually house 200 aircraft, 135 spacecraft and related artifacts, is scheduled to open Dec. 15.
The museum's description of the Enola Gay centers on its technical statistics and explains the advancements it represented in military aircraft. It treats its most notorious mission this way: "On August 6, 1945, this Martin-built B-29-45-MO dropped the first atomic weapon used in combat on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later Bockscar (on display at the U.S. Air Force Museum near Dayton, Ohio) dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. Enola Gay flew as the advance weather reconnaissance aircraft that day."
The latest debate involving the museum and the famed airplane began two weeks ago when the committee objected to the new text and to a statement of Dailey's that the Enola Gay was a "magnificent technological achievement."
A statement posted on the museum's Web site read: "This type of label is precisely the same kind used for the other airplanes and spacecraft in the museum. Its intent is to tell visitors what the object is and the basic facts concerning its history. Over the 27 years of its existence, the museum has carefully followed an approach which offers accurate descriptive data, allowing visitors to evaluate what they encounter in the context of their own points of view."
In 1995 the museum had to scrap plans for an exhibition of the Enola Gay that was more interpretive and had set off a storm of criticism among veterans groups and politicians. The museum then mounted part of the plane at the Mall museum for 21/2 years with a spare text. It was viewed by 4 million people, museum officials said, with few objections.
Reigniting the debate last week, Kuznick sent the museum a petition with 150 signatures from prominent scholars and writers asking for revisions of the text, a meeting with museum officials and a series of conferences on atomic bombings "and the place of nuclear weapons in the modern world." Dailey has also rejected any meeting with the group.
In a statement, the museum said its decision was in keeping with the congressional mandate adopted in 1976, the year the building on the Mall was opened. Part of that mission includes providing "educational material for the historical study of aviation and space flight."
Kuznick, who is also head of American University's Nuclear Studies Institute, said the treatment of the Enola Gay is evidence the museum is not fulfilling that part of the mandate. "We know in 1995 they tried to put on a more expanded exhibition. For them now to decline to do so because they say it is not part of their mandate is disingenuous at best, and cowardly, at least."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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See also:
http://www.enola-gay.org/
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