"FullText" links provide a connection to electronic or print copies provided by the Lehigh Libraries and other services, such as electronic abstracts and interlibrary loan requesting.

8/1994. Director Harwit defends the exhibit, identifying the intended audience as largely "those generations of Americans too young to remember how the war ended." "If we cannot mount a thoroughly documented exhibition, then we have little hope of learning from these epochal events."

"Enola Gay and a Nation's Memories," by Martin Harwit, Air & Space, August/September 1994: 18-21. [PDF]

8/1994. The World War II Times devotes a large portion of its August-September issue to blasting the exhibit. Headlines blare "NASM Script Offensive" and "An Insult to Our Veterans."

[FullText]

8/3/1994. Pro-Smithsonian historians.

"A War Anniversary Hard to Celebrate," by Greg Mitchell, Los Angeles Times, 08/03/94, B7. "The truth is America has never come to terms with the atomic bombings. . . . the exhibit doesn't go quite far enough," but should display an American Ground Zero where we'd find "atomic soldiers and nuclear workers, medical guinea pigs and down-winders." [FullText]

"A-Bomb Dropped on Hiroshima," Los Angeles Times, 08/09/94. Letters in response to Mitchell. "The annual bleeding-heart derby of one-sided tunnel-vision history revisionists has once again begun." Because my life was probably saved by bombing Hiroshima, I celebrate that event every year." "At least Hiroshima was no Pearl Harbor! . . . Better Hiroshima than a special telegram delivered at the door." [FullText]

"Loading the Guns of August 1995," Gar Alperovitz, Chicago Tribune, 08/09/94, 15. The anniversary will be an "occasion of an intense debate" over the morality of using atomic bombs. [FullText]

8/7/1994. Director Harwit defends the exhibit again and is answered.

"Enola Gay: A Nation's, and a Museum's, Dilemma," by Martin Harwit, Washington Post, 08/07/94, C9. The full story "is our responsibility as a national museum in a democracy predicated on an informed citizenry." [FullText]

Correll and veterans reply to Harwit: "The Mission That Ended the War," Washington Post, 08/14/94, C9. "It is a partisan interpretation of what happened and historical revisionism at its worst." "Thank God for the atomic bomb!" "It's also a slap in the face to all Americans." "Veterans are deeply concerned that schoolchildren and their parents born after World War II will leave the National Air and Space Museum with a distorted and incorrect understanding of this important part of our country's history." "The National Air and Space Museum was not established to be a center for political, philosophical, sociological or ethnic discourse." [FullText]

8/10/1994. Peter Blute R-Mass and two dozen other members of Congress express "concern and dismay."

The Congressional letter to Adams. "Our overriding concern is the lack of context in this exhibit." [PDF]

See a collection of congressional press releases. [PDF]

Adams' response to Blute stresses that the exhibit is in flux and needs to look both forward and backward: "The great majority of the American public living today were not yet alive when World War II ended, and this Institution has the responsibility of helping them to understand not only what it meant but the larger context in which it occurred." [PDF]

See Blute's retrospect in "Revisionist History Has Few Defenders," by Peter Blute, Technology Review, Aug 1995, 51-52 "The study of history is a vital tool for the development of any society. Progress is possible only when a society can identify its mistakes and move beyond them. For this to happen, however, the stories of the past must be told truthfully. Revisionist history defeats this goal." [FullText]

8/10/1994. AFA press release: "Despite such minor changes, the 'tilt' of the exhibit is highly partisan."

"Air and Space Museum Continues Revisionist Line on World War II" http://www.afa.org/media/enolagay/06-02.html [https://web.archive.org/web/20050323100543/http://www.afa.org/media/enolagay/06-02.html]

8/12/1994. The American Legion writes President Clinton, calling the exhibit "an affront to an entire generation of Americans": "Your help in seeing this exhibit fundamentally corrected, or eliminated, will be an act of courage and solidarity with America's veterans, and will defuse potential conflict and confrontation which many veterans, despite our efforts to dissuade them, are determined to carry out."

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8/17/1994. Harwit sends Hatch a three-page summary update of script changes.

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8/17/1994. Correll reports on an Aug 16 meeting of various interested parties in which he cites "hostile exchanges" with Harwit.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20101227051258/http://afa.org/media/enolagay/02-01.html]

8/22/1994. Correll reports on developments leading to yet another draft, says there is considerable opinion that it is time "to shut down this exhibit," and in point #4 he is very explicit about what makes the exhibit unacceptable.

"Developments in the Enola Gay Controversy." [https://web.archive.org/web/20101227051226/http://afa.org/media/enolagay/02-02.html]

8/23/1994. Air Force Historian reports that Harwit criticizes his own staff.

Memorandum for the Record by Herman S. Wolk. [https://web.archive.org/web/20130511232621/http://www.afa.org/media/enolagay/08-23-94.html]

8/24/1994. Hatch responds to a Harwit letter about AFA criticism, detailing the AFA position again, calling for the need to "seriously restructure" the exhibit -- the problems are not minor ones of language or technical issues.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20130511232632/http://www.afa.org/media/enolagay/08-24-94.html]

See other letters between the AFA and NASM from August 23 to October 16. Harwit to Hatch: "But you have never indicated specifically what changes you would need to see in order to stop your opposition to it. . . . I would be greatly interested in seeing that listing." Harwit to Hatch: "The responsibility for this exhibition rests with the Director of the Museum. If anyone is to be singled out for blame, it must be I." "Correll to Rodgers: "At our meeting last month, you and Ms Newman said there was no deliberate strategy to slow roll us and other critics on script revisions. . . . The answer will speak louder than words about good faith and intentions." Hatch to Newman: "Unfortunately, this is not yet an exhibit that we can support." [PDF]

8/29/1994. NASM announces addition of the "War in the Pacific" unit, admitting criticisms were valid. This is a clear victory for the critics, a sign that the Smithsonian recognizes the need to revise, yet also evidence to some that the Smithsonian is bowing to political pressure and censorship: "The new exhibition, tentaively entitled 'The War in the Pacific: An American Perspective," is being added in response to complaints from veterans' organizations that "The Last Act" was unbalanced in that it did not provide sufficient context about the origins of World War II."

[PDF]

8/1994. Sampling of coverage in August by major media

"Sanitizing the Flight of the Enola Gay," by Tony Snow, USA Today, 08/01/94, 11A. "The show closes with an observation that even Beavis and Butthead might find trite." [FullText]

"Smithsonian and the Enola Gay," The Sentinel, 08/05/94, 8. "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore." [FullText]

"Time to Admit Our Nuclear Error in Pacific War," by Stuart Udall, Newsday, 08/06/94. "Painful as it would surely be, they can decide to use this somber anniversary -- and a courageous admission that the bombing of Hiroshima was a monstrous mistake -- as an opportunity to rally world opinion behind the idea that nuclear weapons must never again be used as weapons of war and must ultimately be eliminated from the arsenals of all armies. This would be America at its best." [FullText]

"A 'Bomb' for Hiroshima Angers Veterans," by Josh Young, Washington Times, 08/11/94, 1, 8A. [FullText]

"Context and the Enola Gay," Washington Post, 08/14/94, C8. The exhibit "owes much to the fashionable and wrong academic notion that objectivity is unattainable anyway and that all presentations of complex issues must be politically tendentious." [FullText]

Don't Distort History of A-Bombing," by Larry Miller, Dallas Morning News, 08/14/94, 6J. "Unless substantial revisions are made in the plans for the exhibit, those who visit the museum in 1995 will be left with a distorted view of the history of World War II." [FullText]

"Before Passing Judgment on Past Decisions, It's a Good Idea to Study History," by James G. Driscoll, Sun-Sentinel, 08/14/94, 7G. "Those who distort history ['foggy revisionists'] should be forced via time capsule to go back, to live as reasoning adults in the era when hard decisions were made." [FullText]

"Smithsonian Drops a Bomb," by Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe, 08/16/94, 15. The script is "tendentious and manipulative," and "the world was made a better place" in August 1945. [FullText]

"World War II, Revised," by Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, 08/19/94, A27. We should "forget the whole enterprise and let the Japanese commemorate the catastrophe they brought on themselves." [FullText]

"The Enola Gay's Mission," Washington Times, 08/21/94, B2. The Smithsonian is guilty of "distorting history." [FullText]

"What Should We Think of the Enola Gay's Legacy," Washington Times, 08/25/94, 16. Letters in response to the 8/21 article. "Let [NASM] exhibit its relics for what they were and what they did. Leave commentaries on larger world perspectives to others whose business they are." "Any truthful historical exhibit must reconcile and explain all the beliefs concerning this event." [FullText]

"The Nation's Attic: Historian or Moralizer," by Marianne Means, Plain Dealer, 08/27/94, 9B. "It will be hard to rely on the museum's interpretation of long-ago events ever again." [FullText]

"Spare the Apologies," by Kevin O'Brien, Plain Dealer, 08/28/94, 1C. The exhibit "should spark a million interpretations of its significance." [FullText]

"Exhibit Plans on Hiroshima Stir a Debate," New York Times, 08/28/94, 1:25. "The museum's curators are in a position like that of the curators of the Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima. The Japanese curators have begun to alter the message of their displays, though in the opposite direction." [FullText]

"War and the Smithsonian," Wall Street Journal, 08/29/1994, A10. "It is a curious view, this -- that it is the role of a national museum to exclude, in the interest of our moral betterment, any recognition of heroism in battle." [FullText]

"A Politically Correct Enola Gay?" St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 08/29/94, 12B. Americans and Japanese "may benefit from looking the ugliness of war in the face." [FullText]

"The New Battle of Hiroshima," by Bill Powell, Newsweek, 08/29/94, 36. "Museum director Harwit says the Smithsonian is trying to help Americans 'arrive at some kind of conclusion about how we want to think about this as a nation.' The controversy the Smitshonian never wanted may further that aim more than the exhibit it planned." [FullText]

"A-Bomb Exhibit Plan Revamped," by Ken Ringle, Washington Post, 08/30/94, C1. [FullText]

"Changing History," Tulsa World, 08/30/94. "There has been a disquieting move in recent years to sacrifice history on the altar of political correctness." [FullText]

"August 6, 1945," USA Today, 08/30/94, 6A. "Different conclusions will be drawn. But for all, the Enola Gay survives as a powerful, poignant reminder of devastation the world should do its best never to repeat." [FullText]

"Re-Writing History of the Enola Gay," by Charley Reese, Grand Rapids Press, 08/30/94. The Smithsonian "would send U.S. on A-bomb guilt trip." [FullText]

"Smithsonian rewrites History of World War II," by Don Feder, Conservative Chronicle, 08/31/94, 26. "In the past three months, two Japanese Cabinet ministers have been forced to resign for denying their nation's war guilt. Rising-Sun revisionists are involuntarily aided by American taxpayers [through an exhibit] worthy of Oliver Stone." [FullText]

[Mushroom cloud over the National Air and Space Museum], editorial cartoon by Garner, Washington Times, 8/31/94. [FullText]

"PC at the Smithsonian," Boston Herald, 08/31/94. Smithsonian is infected with the "bacterium of political correctness." [FullText]