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.
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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. Experience the evolution of the Enola Gay controversy by reading through a chronological list of documents divided into five rounds: “From our point of view, the Enola Gay is not the symbol of technological advancement but the symbol of evil,” he said.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. In other words, you should show the historical facts behind the bombing. politicians and World War II veterans, scrapping the show in January 1995.įrom that year through 1998, the fuselage section was exhibited but without reference to the destruction caused by the bombings.Īt a news conference Friday at the National Press Club, Tsuboi said, “If the Enola Gay is going to be displayed, then you should also display what exactly happened when it dropped the bomb. attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and their historical aftermath. In 1994, the Smithsonian was planning to display part of the fuselage of the Enola Gay in an exhibit that was to focus on the massive human casualties and destruction caused by the U.S. The death toll in Hiroshima from the Enola Gay bombing rose to around 140,000 by the end of 1945, while some 70,000 had died by then in Nagasaki from a bomb dropped by a B-29 named Boxcar, according to reports to the United Nations by the two cities.Īs of August this year, the combined toll of people who have died as a result of the attacks had climbed to roughly 364,000, with around 280,000 people having been recognized as hibakusha, or surviving atomic bombing victims, as of the end of March. The panel will not mention the people who died in Hiroshima or the thousands of others who suffered from radiation sickness after the bombing. The information panel for the Enola Gay will state that the plane dropped the first atomic weapons used in combat on Hiroshima and that another B-29 dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, according to the museum. The museum will display the reassembled Enola Gay from Monday, when its new facility opens near Washington Dulles International Airport. 6, 1945, attack on Hiroshima, and Tanaka, who was in Nagasaki when the bomb detonated above the city three days later, submitted the letters and the petition to the museum’s associate director, John Benton.
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Jack Dailey, but the museum said he was out of town and not available.
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Tsuboi and Tanaka tried to hand the letters and the petition to the museum’s director, retired Gen. The museum should also show images of the casualties and damage caused by the bomb dropped by the B-29 Superfortress, they said.
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The letters, including one from Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, and a petition signed by more than 25,000 people call on the museum to change its plan to exhibit the reassembled Enola Gay from Monday in a celebration of U.S.