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In the words of General Paul Tibbets, who piloted the Enola Gay, the planned exhibit was "a damn big insult." He and other veterans demanded that the bomber be displayed "proudly and patriotically" (Hogan 1996, 205 Tibbets website). The American Legion, the Retired Officers Association, and other veterans' organizations lashed out at an exhibit displaying pictures of dead Japanese civilians and raising questions about the postwar arms race rather than celebrating the quintessential American triumph. A preliminary script, drawn up by the curators, was approved by an advisory panel of prominent historians.īut when the museum submitted the script to interested citizens' groups, controversy erupted. The plane was the projected centerpiece for an exhibit that would inspire public reflection on the development and use of nuclear weapons, as well as on the dawn and denouement of the nuclear era. In the early 1990s, with the approach of the fiftieth anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, the curators at the Smithsonian, a complex of eighteen museums in and around the nation's capital, proposed to display the fuselage of the Enola Gay, the giant B-29 bomber that had dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
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Nevertheless, more hawkish forces, appealing to narrow definitions of patriotism, easily won the battle for public opinion. During the Smithsonian disputes, peace groups and historians provided a spirited and informed critique of the necessity for the Hiroshima bombing and highlighting its human costs. government’s Smithsonian Institution help to clarify the bases for this stubborn defense. The heated controversies surrounding the opening in 19 of bomb-related exhibits at the National Air and Space Museum of the U.S. Over the nearly six decades since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, a substantial majority of Americans has continued to defend the action. The controversy had broad implications for the field of history and the arena of American public consciousness.The Enola Gay, the Atomic Bomb and American War Memory This paper examines the Smithsonian-Enola Gay controversy, an event which took place between 19. In Wisconsin, there was lively debate and discussion. The events sparked conversation about the atomic bombings and around the United States people discussed the events. The Smithsonian wished to portray an accurate picture, even at the cost of exposing America's not so innocent past.
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Scholars have noted, however, that the real issue at stake was a difference in the way America's role in history was viewed. Each of these groups supported their own agendas however, they all centered their arguments on what they say as a lack of balance in the Smithsonian exhibit. In an attempt to portray the end of World War II, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the nuclear arms race, the National Air and Space Museum ran into great opposition from various military groups and certain members of Congress. The controversy had broad implications for the field of history and the arena of American public consciousness.
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