>Thank you Lisa for stating my point.  Every exhibit presents a
>          point-of-view, whether implicitly or explicitly.  Museums
>          need to tell the public what an exhibit's (or
>          the exhibit's creators) point-of-view is based on.  The
>          public may not agree, that's ok, but at least they should
>          understand the exhibit is not supposed to display the one
>          ultimate truth.
>
>          Mandy Murphy (personal views only, not representative of
 
But should museums be in the business of editorializing (i.e. presenting a
point-of-view) in the first place?  I would so much have liked NASM to
present the FACTS -- a) this is what the one side knew or thought it knew;
b) this is what the other side knew or thought it knew; c) on the basis of
this and that, such and so happened.  If further information was later
gathered, sure, give that as well -- clearly labelled as later
developments.
 
Leave further or deeper consideration after fifty years' worth (in this
particular case) of societal development to the visitors, NOT to the
curators.
 
If there are more than one set of figures, GIVE THEM ALL and clearly mark
those that WERE and those that WERE NOT available to Truman and his
advisors at the time of the decision to drop the bomb.
 
If one side or t'other was racist, very well -- show the propaganda.  FROM
BOTH SIDES.  Let that speak for itself.  And show the inhumanities that
occurred -- on BOTH sides.  (War is all hell, as Sherman said.)
 
Frankly, the way all of this was handled and the subsequent decision to
cancel the exhibition altogether (more or less) -- *I* feel as a taxpayer
and a citizen (and a member of the Smithsonian's Resident Associate
program!) that I have been cheated of a chance to examine more closely part
of my own history.  I also feel insulted, quite frankly: doesn't anyone
involved in this idiocy feel the visitors can't make up their OWN minds?!
That we have to be told what to think about what we see?  That we have to
be protected against what we'd rather NOT see?
 
BTW, I did note in my quick review of museum-l messages that someone (Eric
Siegel?) offered to hunt up and publish the script of the exhibition.
Bravo.  A friend of mine who knew I was following this told me he'd seen a
press release to the effect that it will be available, all 500 odd pages of
it, in April at a symposium for museum professionals in Ann Arbor.  The
symposium (I think it's on controversial exhibitions -- how apropos!) seems
to be a joint project co-hosted by the Smithsonian and the University of
Michigan.  I wish they'd just go ahead and publish it and its predecessors,
or at least make them available, on the Net.
 
The Smithsonian is loosing out on one whale of a chance to do some decent
public relations, at least among its professional colleagues on museum-l,
by not at least telling people about this, even if they feel for whatever
reasons they can't publish the script itself ... If they have, *I* sure
missed it.  But, then, I've been scanning subject lines on "atom" ...
 
Mario Rups
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