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As one might expect, the money threat won out and the Smithsonian's chief executive cancelled the exhibit and Mr.
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Further, 81 members of Congress demanded the dismissal of the museum director, Mr. Solomon, who promised to “zero out” the Smithsonian's congressional appropriation unless the museum accommodated the wishes of the American Legion concerning the Enola Gay exhibit and the museum “could count on that.” It was not clear whether Representative Solomon ever reviewed the content or context of the proposed exhibit before issuing his edict. One of the more telling arguments came from Republican New York Congressman Gerald B. In 1995, a planned exhibition of the Enola Gay at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum was cancelled before ever opening due to pressures from congressional lobbyists, including the American Legion and the Air Force Association. The title of his talk was, “An Exhibit Denied: Lobbying the History of Enola Gay.”
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The speaker for the 2085th meeting was Martin Harwit, the former Director of the National Air and Space Museum. The Recording Secretary read the minutes of the 2084th meeting and they were approved. Yet the same controversy flares anew briefly in 2003 when the plane is moved to a permanent home in the new National Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport.President-Elect Garavelli called the 2085th meeting to order at 8:26 p.m. The controversy over how the Enola Gay should represent history gradually becomes history itself. Retrospects and reflections on the controversy following the opening of the new exhibit. In the period before the new exhibit opens, the group of historians calls for national teach-ins in protest, Smithsonian damage control includes a conference on museums in a democratic society at the University of Michigan, and Martin Harwit resigns just before two days of hearings begin in the Senate. Organized opposition, now public - including the American Legion, members of Congress, and World War II veterans of all stripes - to the direction of the Smithsonian exhibit mounts, forcing several more drafts, none of which satisfies the critics.Ī group of historians vigorously defend the museum, but a dispute over the number of lives saved by dropping the bomb dooms negotiations for an exhibit acceptable to the critics, and new Smithsonian Secretary Michael Heyman admits the museum made a mistake, cancels the exhibit, and plans a new, uncontroversial one. The Smithsonian proposal to mark this important anniversary as a "crossroads" - consonant with a new Smithsonian philosophy of museumship by Secretary Robert McCormick Adams and NASM Director Martin Harwit - is unsuccessfully questioned privately by the Air Force Association, led by John T. Experience the evolution of the Enola Gay controversy by reading through a chronological list of documents divided into five rounds: The exhibit marking the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II featuring the refurbished B-29 Enola Gay proposed by the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum resulted in fierce controversy over how history should represent dropping an atom bomb on Japan.