Criticism Meets New Exhibit of Plane That Carried A-Bomb

Criticism Meets New Exhibit of Plane That Carried A-Bomb

(EXCERPT) By ELIZABETH OLSON

ASHINGTON, Oct. 31 — When officials at the Smithsonian Institution
unveiled a new home for the World War II bomber the Enola Gay in
August, they had hoped to avoid the kind of controversy that had
previously plagued efforts to exhibit the airplane that carried the
first atomic bomb.

Not likely. Now a group of scholars, writers, activists and others
have signed a petition criticizing the exhibit for labeling the Enola
Gay as "the largest and most technologically advanced airplane for its
time" without mentioning that the Boeing B-29 dropped the bomb on
Hiroshima.

"You wouldn't display a slave ship solely as a model of technological
advancement," said David Nasaw, a cultural historian at CUNY Graduate
Center, and one of more than 100 signers of the petition. "It would be
offensive not to put it in context."

Peter J. Kuznick, the director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at
American University, who initiated the petition along with members of
the antiwar group Peace Action, emphasized that they were not opposed
to the display. "It is essential that the plane be displayed," Mr.
Kuznick said, "but it must include discussions about the decision to
drop the bomb."

He said he and other signers hoped "to sit down with Smithsonian
officials to see the seriousness of this...

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---------------------------
Otis Willie
Associate Librarian
The American War Library
http://www.americanwarlibrary.com