I found this on misc.activism.progressive and thought it would be of
interest.
 
Sue Shore
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>
>
> Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
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> From: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: FINS: Enola Gay Exhibit to be Replaced
> Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 21:33:31 GMT
>
> =========================================================================
> FINS SPECIAL REPORT                                      January 30, 1995
> =========================================================================
>
> ENOLA GAY EXHIBIT TO BE REPLACED
> Replacement Will Honor Veteran's Valor and Sacrifice
>
> Washington, DC--Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, I. Michael
> Heyman, announced today at a press conference that the Board of Regents of
> the institution decided to support his proposal to replace "The Last Act:
> The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II (the Enola Gay exhibition).
> The exhibition will be replaced by a new exhibit Heyman said.  "In this
> important anniversary year, veterans and their families were expecting,
> and rightly so, that the nation would honor and commemorate their valor
> and sacrifice."  In making this dramatic change in the exhibit after
> conservative pressure was placed on the Smithsonian, Heyman explained that
> the exhibit would be "a much simpler one, essentially a display,
> permitting the Enola Gay and its crew to speak for themselves."  Cut out
> of the exhibition would be any attempt to provide a context and analysis
> of the moral and political circumstances and conditions surrounding the
> decision to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan by President Truman in
> 1945.
>
>   Hyman said the one overriding reason for the decision to replace the
> original exhibit was his conclusion that "we made a basic error in
> attempting to couple an historic treatment of the use of atomic weapons
> with the 50th anniversary commemoration of the end of the war."  He also
> rejected including any of the artifacts to be contributed by the Japanese
> people with regard to this exhibition.  In response to a question by FINS
> as to whether by cutting all contextual explanation out of the exhibition
> the event was essentially made meaningless, Heyman indicated that there
> would be "ample meaning in the simple display of the Enola Gay
> commemorating the end of the war," without any moral or political analysis.
>
>   Heyman tried to underscore the difficulty of attempting to tell such a
> complex story in an exhibition, and that this attempt in the original plan
> was "a fundamental error."  He also confirmed that the breakdown in
> negotiations over the original design of the exhibit occurred when
> veterans groups were outraged over the discovery that the original
> estimate of casualties that would have resulted from an invasion--had the
> atom bomb not been used--was not consistent with the source document on
> which the estimate was based.  The Smithsonian's decision to conform their
> script of the event to the actual source document estimate caused
> negotiations with the veterans to breakdown, Heyman explained.
>
>   Heyman indicated that although he was an administrator without any
> experience in designing exhibitions he would be taking over personal
> control of the new event.  He said "I will work with whomever I believe
> necessary to produce it."
>
>   Heyman also announced that "the issue of atomic weapons is one which
> the institution in its role as a public forum on important issues, can
> address well in the future, but not necessarily in an exhibition."  He
> said he was therefore considering "a series of symposia to be held at a
> later date."
>
>   Finally, Heyman announced that no decision would be made in the heat of
> the moment with regard to the demand made by a number of members of
> Congress that Air and Space Museum Director Martin Harwit be "immediately
> terminated or resign."  He also stressed that the change in the exhibit
> was not any reflection on the work of the people who were in charge of the
> original plan.
>
>
>
>