He wanted the museum to be a “public conscience” that would discuss topics “under public debate,” Linenthal described. His vision for the museum diverged from previous directors. In 1987, NASM hired Martin Harwit as their new director. Linenthal, who was on the advisory board of the Enola Gay exhibit. However, the museum felt “ambivalence about the plane’s eventual display,” described historian Edward T. Restoration efforts by the Smithsonian started on December 5, 1984. The veterans formed “the Committee for the Restoration and Proud Display of the Enola Gay” to raise funds. Their motivations, at this time, stemmed primarily from the poor condition of the aircraft. In the 1980s, members of the 509 th Composite Group asked for a proper restoration of the aircraft. Garber Preservation, Restoration and Storage facility for NASM. In 1961, the Enola Gay was fully disassembled and moved to the Paul E. There its wings began to rust and vandals even damaged the plane. Notably, from 1953 to 1960, its home was Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. A fiery controversy ensued that demonstrated the competing historical narratives regarding the decision to drop the bomb.įollowing World War II, the Enola Gay had been moved around from location to location.
#Enola gay exhibit at the smithsonian full
The scaled-down display he said will not tell "the full story" of the atomic bomb, including the horrors of nuclear war as experienced in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.For the 50 th anniversary of the end of World War II, the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) proposed an exhibition that would include displaying the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress that was used to drop the bomb on Hiroshima. Musil, director of policy and programs for Physicians for Social Responsibility, an anti-nuclear group based in Washington, criticized the Smithsonian decision.
Detweiler said the American Legion will urge Congress to go ahead with the hearings. Blute is a member of that committee, which has jurisdiction over the Smithsonian Institution, supported chiefly by federal money. Spokesman Rob Gray said the congressman would confer with the chairman of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee before deciding whether to continue to press for hearings on the process by which the exhibit was created. Heyman "has made a sound decision" in scuttling an exhibition he called a "politically correct diatribe."
Peter Blute, the Massachusetts Republican who helped lead the congressional call for Mr. No glorification, no nonsense that they were trying to do before." Burr Bennett, a member of a group of B-29 veterans petitioning for what it calls "proper display of the Enola Gay" said the simpler display is "what we've been asking for all along. Until the doors open and we see the exhibit we're taking a wait-and-see attitude." Jack Giese, spokesman for the Air Force Association, a group of 180,000 members, said "we are encouraged but we are extremely cautious.