Enola gay smithsonian controversy how to#
Although those who involved in this debate be it veterans, Air Force Association, American Legion, news editors, conservative politicians, academic historians, Smithsonian curators and American public agreed that the main objective of the exhibit is to commemorate the important mission that led America to victory, there will always be different approaches on how to portray American as a saviour of the world and to acknowledged the United States as the nation that ends the war. The difference between the two different factions did not actually portray whether one side distorted the facts more than the other, although there were a number of events that which conservative politicians and veterans deliberately refused to acknowledge the existence of certain information, records and archives materials. Rather, it centred on questions about for whom, for what objectives, and for whose community the event need to be remembered. The Enola Gay controversy was not really about facts, nor was it about which side represented the facts more accurately. This essay furthermore attempts to situate The Enola Gay debates within the larger context of the condition of the knowledge that describes those who were involved in this polemic. In fact, any attempts to produce or exhibit narratives about the past will always spark a controversy and incites various arguments and struggles over historical truth. The Enola Gay controversy or some might called it the Smithsonian atomic bomb exhibit debates sparks a History Wars in American public. It will focuses on various predicaments in an attempts to produce a nation’s single and definitive public history and memory shared commonly and objectively by a nation. This essay explores the ways in which the Enola Gay debate was fought out primarily in the American public media and in congressional hearings about history and memory. The story of the Smithsonian and the Enola Gay reflected a larger battle in America over academic goals, cultural superiority, sacrifices, heroic effort and how should American remember their past. As the scripts developed, the exhibit had set off a heated controversy concerning national ideologies, the collective memory of self-victimization, and contestation over historical knowledge. This announcement brought the museum into contact with a variety of interested groups. Along that process, various stakeholders in the representation of this historical event were embroiled including Smithsonian curators, veterans such as the Air Force Association and the American Legion, members of the United States Congress, academic historians, media, American public and even the Japanese.Īs early as in 1988, Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum (NASM) announced that they would display the Enola Gay as part of an interpretive exhibit on the end of World War II and the origins of the Cold War. This controversy centred around the failed 1995 Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s exhibit of the Enola Gay, which intended to examine intersection the end of World War II beginning with the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was based on the controversy over how history should be represented for the decision of dropping an atomic bomb on Japan when the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum drafted an exhibit entitled “ The Crossroads: The End of World War II, the Atomic Bomb and the Cold War” around the refurbished Enola Gay to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the war in 1995. In Wisconsin, there was lively debate and discussion.The term “ History Wars” was coined in the United States in 1994.
![enola gay smithsonian controversy enola gay smithsonian controversy](https://www.lehigh.edu/~ejg1/doc/cartoon2.jpg)
The events sparked conversation about the atomic bombings and around the United States people discussed the events.
![enola gay smithsonian controversy enola gay smithsonian controversy](https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb525-The-Atomic-Bomb-and-the-End-of-World-War-II/photos/enola-gay.jpg)
The Smithsonian wished to portray an accurate picture, even at the cost of exposing America?s not so innocent past. Scholars have noted, however, that the real issue at stake was a difference in the way America?s role in history was viewed. Each of these groups supported their own agendas however, they all centered their arguments on what they say as a lack of balance in the Smithsonian exhibit.
![enola gay smithsonian controversy enola gay smithsonian controversy](https://s1.nyt.com/timesmachine/pages/1/1995/05/03/636095_360W.png)
In an attempt to portray the end of World War II, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the nuclear arms race, the National Air and Space Museum ran into great opposition from various military groups and certain members of Congress. The controversy had broad implications for the field of history and the arena of American public consciousness. This paper examines the Smithsonian?Enola Gay controversy, an event which took place between 19.