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He could never order a nuclear bomb to be dropped on ''an enemy.'' (''Well, I could!'' crowed Representative Sam Johnson, a Texas Republican.)īut Harwit the scientist sharply separates what he feels, or wishes were so, from what he knows, from what can be documented. He is antinuclear, and conceded in a Congressional hearing that In this book, a compilation of press releases, letters, conversations and quotations, linkedīy narrative, from the five scripts his exhibition went through before it was canceled (he pointedly ignores the present exhibition), Harwit does not hide his own opinions. Harwit is a career scientist, and he thinks and writes like one. These scribbled words already tell us much about their author, and foreshadow the trouble to come. What are the losses to humans who become the victims - civilians or military, it doesn't matter.'' It is about the impacts and effects of bombing on people, and on the strategic outcome of conflicts. ''This is not an exhibit about the rights and wrongs of war, about who started what, and who were the bad guys and who were the good. When Harwit arrived there, the restoration of the Enola Gay, in anticipation of the 50th anniversary of its mission in 1995, had already begun, and he wrote himself a bedside note: A professor of astrophysics at Cornell for 25 years and an authority on the history of science, Harwit, on becoming director of National Air and Space in 1987, traded classes of 25 or so graduate students for the estimatedġ0 million who annually visit the museum. The central figure in the affair, the museum's former director, Martin Harwit, has written ''An Exhibit Denied,'' a scrupulously documented account Of academic research and the half-remembered truths of school days. When the dust settled, something of great value to American democracy had been jeopardized - the role of public museums as a bridge between the constant updates It was lessĪbout what happened 52 years ago than about how Americans see themselves now. School history and the academic professionals' verdicts: the Civil War was not just about slavery, Columbus did not really discover America, and so on. Why doubt it? There is often a gap between the simplifications of high
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Most visitors accept without question the version of the past presented in the current display, which also amounts to a crisp, plausible justification for the use of the atomic bomb. The public presentation of history in the United States in this generation.'' History and now a professor at the University of North Carolina, has written: ''The cancellation of the National Air and Space Museum's original Enola Gay exhibition in January 1995 was one of the worst tragedies to befall Kohn, a longtime chief of air force history for the United States Air Force, a former president of the Society of Military No one viewing the present display would be likely to guess what Richard H. The present one alludes to it in a few vague words, but the catalogue has been withdrawn, and the text of the exhibition, entitled ''The LastĪct,'' cannot be published. Such an invasion, especially if undertaken for both main islands, would have led to very heavy casualties among American, AlliedĪnd Japanese armed forces, and Japanese civilians.'' But what then? Of the nuclear arms race, of 50 years of controversy over the decision to use the bomb, and decades of anxiety as American cities fell under its shadow, thereĪs some visitors may recall, quite a different exhibition of the Enola Gay was originally intended. Led to the immediate surrender of Japan and made unnecessary the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands. Above is her gleaming tail fin, freshly painted with a circled letter ''R,''Īs a label explains, ''to deceive the Japanese.'' A section on bomber nose art shows us the lighter side of the war another lists the latest technology - remote gun sights, variable-pitch propellers, Fowler flaps.Ī placard crisply informs visitors that the Enola Gay's bomb, ''and the one dropped on Nagasaki three days later, destroyed much of the two cities and caused many tens of thousands of deaths. Nearby, almost life-size cutouts of the bomber's crew grin boyishly for the camera. Over the exhibition's two galleries are the polished fuselage, flight deck and bomb bay of the enormousī-29 itself, with the casing of an atomic bomb, just released, standing directly below. Or the past two years, the main display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington has been an exhibition called simply ''Enola Gay.'' Towering The ex-director of the Air and Space Museum tells how the Enola Gay exhibition crashed.