I am interested in the views of the museum community on the National Air
and Space Museum's exhibition on the atomic bombing of Japan.  How do you
view the very public process of exhibition script review?   Certain
artifacts have been removed from the exhibition because of veterans'
objections (i.e. burned and damaged personal effects from A-bomb victims)
 Is this proper?   What role, and what responsibilities do museums have
in interpreting the recent, controversial past?  There is an issue
relevant to certain historic sites (i.e. battlefields) over symbolic
appropriation of these "powerful places."  With Hiroshima and Nagasaki
firmly "symbolically appropriated" by the Japanese victims and those
opposed to nuclear weapons, are Enola Gay and the Smithsonian exhibition
being symbolically appropriated, perhaps by veterans citing wartime
orthodox views, as well as others seeking to justify a continued nuclear
presence?
 
Your views are being sought for a publication analyzing the
memorialization of the dawn of the nuclear age,  so please understand
that permission to quote is implicit in posting to me.
 
Other than the National Atomic Museum (Albuquerque, NM) what other
museums interpret the nuclear age, or have mounted exhibitions on the
subject of the atomic bomb, atomic testing, or the nuclear age?
 
 
 
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  JAMES DELGADO  [log in to unmask]