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Subject: Smithsonian  Pulls Plug  On Exhibit
Date: 31 Jan 1995 04:44:49 -0500
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HEADLINE: Smithsonian  Pulls Plug  On Exhibit
PUBLICATION DATE: 1/31/95
 
By Eugene L. Meyer;Jacqueline Trescott
 
Washington Post Staff Writers
 
Smithsonian Secretary I. Michael Heyman yesterday scrapped a
controversial exhibit about the atomic bombing of Japan, replacing it
with a drastically scaled-down display of the plane that dropped the
bomb on Hiroshima, a video about its crew and minimal text.
 
Heyman asserted that the planned exhibit was fundamentally flawed and
"consuming me and the institution." He said the forward fuselage of the
B-29 Enola Gay will be exhibited starting in May at the Smithsonian's
National Air and Space Museum without text that would have raised
questions about the morality of the decision to drop the bomb.
 
Despite Heyman's action, the 3.1-million-member American Legion said
congressional hearings on the publicly supported Smithsonian should go
forward as planned.
 
Explaining his decision, Heyman said there was a "fundamental flaw in
the concept" of the exhibit, titled "The Final Act: The Atomic Bomb and
the End of World War II." "Despite our sincere efforts to address
everyone's concerns, we were bound to fail," he said. "I have concluded
that we made a basic error in attempting to couple a historical
treatment of the use of atomic weapons with the 50th anniversary
commemoration of the end of the war."
 
However, Heyman said he is considering "a series of symposia" to be
held later on the issues raised by atomic weapons and their use. Such
panels would involve experts, curators, military historians,
representatives of veterans and peace groups and others.
 
Heyman also announced a joint forum with the University of Michigan
this spring on how museums should handle controversial subjects. He said
the forum in Ann Arbor will focus on the Smithsonian's "role and
responsibilities as a national museum."
 
The  secretary, who assumed office in September, said he has a "number
of regrets about this sad situation." For the past year, veterans,
historians and others have argued over the exhibit's contents. Critics
charged that the proposed text portrayed the Japanese as innocent
victims of ruthless Americans determined to avenge Pearl Harbor. The
text raised questions about whether the bombing was necessary to avoid a
costly invasion of Japan.
 
World War II ended with Japan's surrender within days of the bombings
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Heyman said he regretted the controversy had
"gotten in the way of the commemoration of our nation's victory over
aggression 50 years ago." He also regretted that it has "led some to
doubt the value of historical inquiry by museums."
 
Heyman spoke at a packed news conference attended by more than 100
reporters in the Smithsonian's underground S. Dillon Ripley Center. Not
since the 1992 announcement of a "Star Trek" exhibit had a Smithsonian
press event been so heavily covered, officials said.
 
The secretary was flanked by 14 of the institution's 16 governing
regents. "As you can see, they stand behind me," he said. The press
briefing followed a regularly scheduled regents meeting that lasted
three hours.
 
Conspicuously absent from the briefing was Air and Space Museum
Director Martin O. Harwit, whose removal was demanded by 81 members of
Congress last week for his role in overseeing the exhibit planning. Mike
Fetters, a museum spokesman, said Harwit would have no comment.
 
Asked about Harwit's future, Heyman said, "One doesn't make personnel
decisions that have basic impacts on people's lives and careers in the
middle of passion and heat." But he pledged to "look with great care at
the management of Air and Space in an organized way."
 
He may have some help from both houses of Congress, which are planning
separate hearings on the Enola Gay controversy and the operations of the
Smithsonian.
 
Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), a newly appointed regent and a member of
the Senate Rules Committee, said he expects the hearings to go forward,
but with perhaps a different slant.
 
"I may suggest to [committee chairman] Senator Ted Stevens that since
the Enola Gay has been resolved . . . that we look at how the
Smithsonian will be managed in the future and what standards will be
developed for interpretative exhibitions," Cochran said.
 
William M. Detweiler, national commander of the American Legion, said,
"The institution has been badly damaged . . . by its own mismanagement
and zeal for revisionist history." The Legion had conducted line-by-line
negotiations with Smithsonian officials over the proposed exhibit but
ultimately demanded its cancellation.
 
Heyman's action may be an exercise in damage control, but clearly it
-- I. Michael Heymandidn't satisfy everyone. Said Byron Hollinshead,
publisher of the military history magazine MHQ and a supporter of the
decision to drop the bomb: "I think it's a terrible decision for a major
historical organization to opt out" of an exhibit fully dealing with the
event.
 
The 180,000-member Air Force Association, a critic of the
exhibit-in-the-making for a year, said it would withhold judgment until
the scaled-down version opens. "We're encouraged, but we've been there
before," said AFA spokesman Jack Giese. "It's wait and see."
 
Peace groups were also unhappy with the decision not show the human
impact of the two atomic bombs that killed an estimated 140,000 people.
 
"With the exhibit truncated," said Robert K. Musil, policy director for
the Physicians for Social Responsibility, visitors will fail to learn
about high-level dissenters of President Harry S. Truman's decision to
drop the bomb.
 
Also missing, Musil said, will be the concerns of scientists at the
time that use of the bomb would trigger a nuclear arms race, as well as
the story of American veterans "forced to march under atomic test
clouds" who later were stricken with cancers he attributed to
radiation.
 
But Heyman said: "I think the new exhibition should be a much simpler
one, essentially a display, permitting the Enola Gay and its crew to
speak for themselves . . . with labels that don't get into the wisdom,
necessity and morality of using atomic weapons."
 
The Enola Gay has been part of the Smithsonian's collection since 1948.
It sat unprotected at Andrews Air Force Base for years before being
moved to a Suitland storage facility. There, over the past 12 years, the
plane has undergone a $1 million restoration.
 
Plans call for displaying the entire aircraft at a future extension of
the Air and Space Museum at Dulles International Airport. The front
portion now sits inside the museum on the Mall.
 
In repeatedly revising the ill-fated exhibit, Heyman said Air and Space
had spent $296,000 -- about half the total budgeted for the event. "Not
all is lost," he said of the preparations. "Some might be usable."
 
But the exhibit catalogue of text and photos, already promoted on the
spring list of the Smithsonian Institution Press, won't appear, he said.
Other than the "100-plus copies of various scripts circulating," he
said, "there is nothing we will print in that regard."
 
 
---
Copyright 1995, The Washington Post.  This story is from the Washington
Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be archived or
redistributed.
 
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