"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.

7/1/1995. Air Force Magazine publishes its tenth article, quoting from the congressional hearings: "Shock over a 'revisionist interpretation' of the use of atomic weapons to speed the end of World War II has led a Senate committee to review the management practices of the nation's premier museum."

"Exhibit Blunders Force Smithsonian Probe," Air Force Magazine, 07/95. [https://web.archive.org/web/20120509225323/http://www.afa.org/media/enolagay/07-16.html]

"Struggling with History," by Rolland D. Truitt, Air Force Magazine, July 1995, 6. Letter: "Thank you, Air Force Magazine, for providing the necessary leadership to depoliticize the Smithsonian's Enola Gay project. Your voice was a clarion." [FullText]

7/16/1995. Seattle News does a major series on the anniversary of the A-Bomb test.

"Fifty Years from Trinity: On July 16, 1945, Everything Changed. Forever." [http://www.seattletimes.com/trinity/]

7/27/1995. Peter Jennings does major ABC-TV documentary using the Enola Gay controversy as a springboard to examine the controversy among historians over dropping the bomb, and the show itself generates controversy.

"Hiroshima: Why the Bomb Was Dropped" ABC News Date: 07/27/95 -- available on video also (see Resources). "It is unfortunate, we think, that some veterans' organizations and some politicians felt the need to bully our most important national museum, so the whole story of Hiroshima is not represented here. That is not fair to history or to the rest of us. After all, freedom of discussion was one of the ideals that Americans fought and died for." [LexisNexis]

"History Through a Mushroom Cloud," by Ken Ringle, Washington Post, 07/27/95, D1: "a rather stunning excision of history -- an ingenue's stroll down narrow tunnels of academic revisionism with only occasional intimations that larger truths may lie outside." [FullText]

"Vets, Historians Rip ABC Atomic Report," by Laurence Jarvik, Washington Times, 07/29/95, A3. An American Legion representative calls the show "a disservice to America's veterans, to America's history and to its own distinguished legacy." [FullText]

"It's Hard to See How Hindsight Is Really 20/20?" by Richard Grenier, Washington Times, 08/01/95, 23. "An animating spirit behind the now defunct anti-bomb Enola Gay exhibit . . . was at it again." [FullText]

"The Final Insult to Honor and History," by Cal Thomas, Washington Times, 08/02/95, A18. "Those 'heroes' and 'heroines' of the 60s never saw a cause worth fighting for or a war worth winning. They have now delivered the final insult. . . . demeaning their parents' sacrifice, patriotism and decisiveness." [FullText]

"Minnie, Mickey and Peter," by Richard Grenier, Washington Times, 08/04/95, A19. (Course Documents) "Those concerned that Michael Eisner will corrupt the purity of ABC News should be reminded that the network has had a Barbra Streisand view of the country for some time. . . . every single program [about Hiroshima on all networks] concluded that it was a grim business but that it ended the war and saved lives. . . . Every program, that is, except ABC's." [FullText]

"TV: The Battle of the Documentaries," by Dorothy Rabinowitz, Wall Street Journal, 08/07/95, A11. "We learned mainly that a band of intrepid scholars -- imbued with a higher moral intelligence and a devotion to truth unknown to any previous historians of the subject -- had seen through the deceits of Cold Warriors and American militarists." [FullText]

"The Squad Behind ABC's Bomb Dud," by L. Brent Bozell, III, Washington Times, 08/09/95, A15. "Far be it from Mr. Jennings to think it is a violation of free speech to take millions of dollars from Americans who fought in World War II in order to denigrate them as pawns in an evil imperialist war machine that victimized the Japanese." [FullText]

"Irreconcilable Conflicts," by William Greider and Jefferson Morely, Washington Post, 08/12/95, A19. Letters in response to the show: "True patriotism, I believe, lies in facing and accepting the unresolved contradictions about ourselves." "Pearl Harbor was an indefensible and infamous act of aggression, but Hiroshima was an equally atrocious act of revenge." [FullText]

For a succinct summary of the debate among historians about dropping the bomb: "Pro and Con on Dropping the Bomb" [http://www.seattletimes.com/trinity/supplement/procon.html]

7/31/1995. The Historians' Committee for Open Debate on Hiroshima attacks the exhibit.

[http://www.doug-long.com/letter.htm]

Open letter to Michael Heyman, former Secretary of the Smithsonian, July 31, 1995 "The few words in the exhibit that attempt to provide some historical context for viewing the Enola Gay amount to a highly unbalanced and one-sided presentation of a largely discredited post-war justification of the atomic bombings. Such errors of fact and such tendentious interpretation in the exhibit are no doubt partly the result of your decision earlier this year to take this exhibit out of the hands of professional curators and your own board of historical advisors." [https://www.historians.org/directory/committees/heymanletter.html Archived]

7/1995. Marking and charting the upcoming anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing.

"Was It Right?" by Thomas Powers, Atlantic Monthly, July 1995, 20-23. "Most of the debate over the atomic bombing of Japan focuses on the unanswerable question of whether it was necessary. But that skirts the question of its morality." [FullText]

"Denying History Disables Japan," by Kenzaburo Oe, New York Times, 07/02/95, 6:28. "If I am ever given a chance, there's something I'd like say to the Smithsonian Institution. In the past 50 years, two distinct views have taken root in Hiroshima and Nagasaki: the view of these two cities as embodying the awesome power of nuclear weapons and the view of them as embodying the ultimate tragedies that mankind has suffered. I'd like to offer a third: Hiroshima and Nagasaki as embodying mankind's ability to recover from the most horrible destruction." [FullText]

"Why We Did It," by Evan Thomas, Newsweek, 07/24/95, 22. "The blast at Hiroshima echoes 50 years later. But what did the decision look like at the time, to the men who chose to drop the bomb." [FullText]

"Letter from Hiroshima: Did the Bomb End the War?" by Murray Sayle, New Yorker, July 31, 1995: 40-64. "No one can put mass death right." [FullText]

7/1995. Academics, fearing suppression will become acceptable, go on record.

American Association of University Professors Resolution, "The Smithsonian Institution and the Enola Gay Exhibition." Academe 81 (July-Aug. 1995): 56. "This meeting calls upon the Congress to ensure that the Smithsonian continues to have the latitude it needs for best fulfilling its founding purpose to increase and transmit knowledge." [FullText]

7/1995. The historians spar.

"Enola Gay: 'Patriotically Correct,'" by Kai Bird, Washington Post, 07/07/95, A21. "For most historians, the few words in the exhibit that attempt to provide some historical context for viewing the atomic bomber amount to no more than propaganda for a patriotically correct, yet largely discredited orthodox justification of the atomic bombings. The exhibit dishonors the very principles of free speech and free inquiry for which more than 100,000 Americans sacrificed their lives in the struggle to defeat Japanese fascism 50 years ago. At a moment when Americans are asking our erstwhile World War II enemies -- and the Russians -- to confront their own history honestly and openly, this exhibit stands as a monument to official history and censorship." [FullText]

"Enola Gay Revised," Washington Post, 07/18/95, 20. Five letters to the editor about the Bird article -- all negative. "How long does Kai Bird think Japan would have hesitated to use the bomb on us. He should only live so long." "Not one American life was lost in an invasion against the heavily fortifies home islands. Nothing else is of any consequence whatsoever." [FullText]

"Air and Space Museum Guilty, as Charged," Richard P. Hallion et al, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July 1995: 75-76. "It had been our expectation of goodwill on the part of the museum that led us to be as supportive as we were. Over time, we learned to our distress that our faith had been sadly misplaced. More forceful -- even strident -- protests were required to get corrective action." [FullText]

7/1995. Sampling of coverage in July by major media.

"Coloring History Our Way," by David E. Sanger, New York Times, 07/02/95, 6:30. "Like similar displays in Japan's own war museum, the Smithsonian exhibit seems oddly suspended in a historical vacuum, long on hardware and short on explanations. . . . This is the real moral equivalence: We are matching the Japanese in historical amnesia." [FullText]

"Enola Gay Display at Smithsonian an Embarrassment," by Charles Brunt, Las Cruces Sun-News, 07/02/95. "The glossy but gutted Enola Gay exhibit . . . is not only an indictment of the institution's secretary, I. Michael Heyman, but an insult to the accuracy and importance of history. . . . the nation's premiere repository of history has opted to mark the 50th anniversary of the first wartime use of a nuclear bomb in pencil rather than indelible ink." [FullText]

"3 Arrested at Enola Gay," New York Times, 07/03/95, 1:28. Arrested for pouring "what they said were human blood and ashes." [FullText]

"3 Charged in Enola Gay Protest," Washington Post, 07/03/95, B3. [FullText]

"Enola Gay Painted with Blood," by Jim Keary, Washington Times, 07/03/95, C3. [FullText]

"The Enola Gay Goes on Exhibit, Washington Times, 07/03/95, 16. "There are plenty of other forums available for the discussion of the issues so didactically addressed in the original script. . . . As it stands now, the exhibit allows visitors to draw their own conclusions. And it offers them space to reflect, that, after all, the Enola Gay helped put an end to the threat of fascism and to the most devastating war the world has ever seen." [FullText]

"Can you believe it?! -- The U.N. censored the book commemorating its 50th anniversary" by Wasserman, Boston Globe, 07/6/95. Editorial cartoon. [FullText]

"View from Hiroshima," by Gerald Mizejewski, Washington Times, 07/08/95, A1. On American University exhibit: "But there is a major difference behind the scenes between the Smithsonian's exhibit and the one at the university: who's paying for it." [FullText]

"AU Offers a View of A-Bombs' Horrors," by Philip P. Pan, Washington Post, 07/09/95, B2. American University exhibit. [FullText]

"Think of all the people who died because of this plane," by Thompson, Washington Times, 07/16/95. Editorial cartoon. [FullText]

7/1995. Reviews of the media coverage of the controversy.

"Smithsonian Groaning," by Alicia Mundy, MediaWeek, July 17, 1995: 15. "So far, the only winner is the Washington Times, which repeatedly beat the Washington Post on the story." [FullText]

"Missing the Target," by Tony Capaccio and Uday Mohan, American Journalism Review, July 1995: 18-26. "The dispute that brought about this truncated exhibit was over which version of atom bomb history would be highlighted. The controversy was largely fueled by media accounts that uncritically accepted the conventional rationale for the bomb, ignored contrary historical evidence, and reinforced the charge that the planned exhibit was a pro-Japanese, anti-American tract." [FullText]