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They also argued that the scholarly estimates on the number of American servicemen whose lives were spared by the use of the bomb were far below more traditional assumptions. The Smithsonian Institution acquired the Enola Gay - the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb - forty-four years ago. For more than a year they have attacked the museum's planned exhibit, arguing that the proposed depictions of the horrors of atomic war - the photographic and other documentary records regarding the Japanese victims of the bomb - made the Americans who carried it out appear as the aggressors. On the other hand, the 3.1 million-member American Legion and its political allies in Congress, including the GOP leadership, understandably viewed the anniversary not as an opportunity for an historical examination but as a time for a patriotic commemoration.
SMITHSONIAN ENOLA GAY EXHIBIT FULL
Further, as an institution dedicated to making sense of history, it had a responsibility to present the exhibit of the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber that dropped its atomic payload over Hiroshima, in the full and honest context of the reasons for the bombing and its long-term impacts, including the continuing controversies over weapons of mass destruction. Air and Space Museum exhibit featuring a portion of the B-29 bomber Enola Gay. On the one hand, the institute's National Air and Space Museum and its director, Martin Harwit, had a legitimate mandate to mark the 50th anniversary of what was arguably the most important event of the 20th century. In response to public outcry led by The American Legion, The Smithsonian. Michael Heyman, the Smithsonian's director and former chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley, found himself.
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One can sympathize with the very difficult position in which I.