It dropped the bomb that ended the war.’ It doesn’t take a position on the morality of it,” Heyman said. “I don’t believe that this is a glorification of nuclear weapons. Michael Heyman defended the exhibit that has been the focus of a sometimes-bitter controversy. “The story is not complete if people aren’t aware of the devastation and the loss of life in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and there’s almost no attention to that at all on the exhibit inside,” said Jo Becker, executive director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation.īut Smithsonian Secretary I. Others argued the exhibit didn’t tell the whole story. The issue then was whether the Smithsonian should be the national. Some protesters called the B-29 bomber a destructive symbol that should not be in a museum commemorating human achievement. Not since 1855 has the Smithsonian been riven by a controversy to equal that precipitated by the proposed Enola Gay exhibit. The pamphlets questioned the necessity of bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki to bring an unprecedented deadly end to the war. Those arrested were charged with making a public nuisance. Then the doors were temporarily closed by protester disruptions.Įight demonstrators unfurled banners from a second-floor balcony above the main entrance, shouting “Never again! Never again!” Antibomb pamphlets rained down on people waiting to enter the museum, as one annoyed tourist shouted back, “Take your politics elsewhere!” Lines of tourists snaked around the block outside the Smithsonian Institute as the Enola Gay exhibit opened after months of controversy. Hist 1112 Spring 2020 Reacting to the Past: The Enola Gay Controversy at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, 1995 Overview With the 50 th anniversary of the. Both Americans and the Japanese were meant to have the opportunity to see the exhibit and to try to understand the complex.Police arrested at least 20 protesters Wednesday at the National Air and Space Museum where the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb to end World War II went on display. To the Smithsonian, the Enola Gay was instrumental in events that changed our world. The fourth section was intended to reveal the horrible destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki after they were bombed, and the final section of the exhibition was scheduled to discuss the problems of nuclear weapons and the arms race that followed the war. The third was to focus on the handling of the bomb from the secret factories to the loading onto the plane. The next would explain the decision to drop the Atomic Bomb.
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The first section was to deal with Japanese invasions and the attack on Pearl Harbor.
![the enola gay exhibit controversy the enola gay exhibit controversy](https://cdn.britannica.com/32/133832-050-35B6D1F2/Enola-Gay.jpg)
The exhibition was supposed to contain five controversial narrative sections. This dispute and various other events led to the controversy over the Enola Gay exhibit and its eventual cancellation. The question was whether the Smithsonian Institution's exhibition of Enola Gay was non-biased, or if, instead, it was intended as an instrument of propaganda.
![the enola gay exhibit controversy the enola gay exhibit controversy](https://siarchives.si.edu/sites/default/files/styles/body-image-450h/public/blog-attached-images/20181011_155255_0.jpg)
Those who opposed the exhibit, however, were concerned with the credibility and the message it was trying to send. The Smithsonian wanted to make Americans and those who saw the exhibit reevaluate their understanding of World War II. The controversy surrounding the Enola Gay exhibit stems from disagreements between the Smithsonian, historians, members of Congress, veterans, and those who were there for the event that shook the world. A script was written to point out the different phases that took place before the decision to drop the bomb and the aftermath of that decision. Michael Heyman, Secretary of the Smithsonian, had a vision of creating an exhibit that would inspire people to have more profound discussions about the atom bomb. In 1995, the Enola Gay exhibit was intended to open for the 50th anniversary of the day the Atomic Bomb was dropped on Japan.