Adams: 'we are in the business of confronting and learning from history, not suppressing it. The airplane, which received the most extensive restoration in the museum's history, will be on display at the Steven F. Adams and Harwit, alert to veteran interest evidenced by the Enola Gay Restoration Association, begin planning to exhibit the refurbished Enola Gay and, in doing so, they articulate their philosophy of the Smithsonian's role in presenting history. 18) unveiled the newly reassembled Enola Gay, the Boeing B-29 Superfortress used to drop the first atomic bomb in combat. 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. The Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum today (Aug. 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 issue then was whether the Smithsonian should be the national. 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. Not since 1855 has the Smithsonian been riven by a controversy to equal that precipitated by the proposed Enola Gay exhibit. 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.