An Exhibit Denied: Lobbying the History of Enola Gay [Hardcover]

Martin Harwit (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0387947973 | ISBN-13: 978-0387947976 | Publication Date: August 29, 1996 | Edition: 1

The National Air and Space Museum's attempt to mount an exhibition featuring the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, broke down in a firestorm of controversy. Even fifty years after the end of World War II, many of the issues the exhibit would have covered - the difficult decision whether to drop the bomb or mount a full-scale invasion of Japan; the conduct of troops on both sides; the attempt to display artifacts once belonging to citizens killed by the bomb (which would, in some people's eyes, grant the Japanese nation the status of victims); the nuclear arms race that followed the end of the war - proved too painfully divisive for America to confront dispassionately. Not only did liberals fight with conservatives, but different factions and different military organizations advanced conflicting views as well. This was not the first museum exhibition to become a political football, but it may have been the most important, and its failure is a signal cultural event of our time. Martin Harwit was the Director of the National Air and Space Museum until shortly after the exhibit's cancellation under congressional pressure, after which he resigned his post. His beautifully written and extensively documented book tells the entire story, from the initial decision to restore Enola Gay through the breakdown of cooperation to the cancellation amid a well-organized p.r. campaign by military groups opposed to the exhibit.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Martin Harwit's An Exhibit Denied is a cautionary tale about what happens when politics intrudes on the objective quest for truth. The year 1995 marked the 50th anniversary of the flight of the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. In preparation for that anniversary, the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum began work on an exhibit that would not only reprise the events surrounding the bombing, but would also examine the bomb's impact on people--both Japanese and American, civilian and military. Under the guidance of Martin Harwit, a former professor of astrophysics at Cornell University, the planned exhibit included, among other things, Japanese civilian artifacts from the bombing and documents showing that high-ranking military leaders such as Dwight D. Eisenhower had grave doubts about dropping the bomb. Most controversially, the exhibit did not support the commonly held belief that the bombing saved countless lives by preventing a land invasion, and this is what eventually led to its downfall. Harwit pointed out that there was no way of knowing how the war would have ended without bombs; the American Legion national commander demanded that President Clinton shut the exhibit down.

What followed was a donnybrook of epic proportions as the media, the Republican-dominated Congress, and veterans' lobbying groups all portrayed Harwit's attempt to present the Enola Gay in an objective light as antipatriotic, left-wing propaganda. Eventually, Harwit was dismissed and the Enola Gay exhibit was drastically rewritten. In An Exhibit Denied, Martin Harwit once again brings his scientific method to the telling of this story, presenting both sides of the argument and letting the facts speak for themselves. What those facts tell us is truly disturbing.

From Library Journal

The exhibit of the Enola Gay Historical Mission was to have been the cornerpiece of the Smithsonian Institution's commemoration of the ending of World War II, but controversy surrounding the presentation made it the first exhibit in the Smithsonian's history to be canceled. Harwit, who was forced to resign as director of the Smithsonian because of the events, has written a comprehensive treatment of the exhibit. He discusses the exhibit from inception to cancellation, occasionally showing his bias. The exhibit was controversial from the beginning with some veterans groups, who protested to Congress, leading to Congressional intervention and, finally, after the conservatives gained control of Congress in 1994, to its cancellation. The strongest feature of Harwit's work is the portrayal of how the press and pressure groups misrepresented various meetings. Harwit provides fascinating insight into the workings of the Smithsonian. His work is designed for informed lay readers and scholars.?Richard P. Hedlund, Ashland Community Coll., Ky.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 477 pages
• Publisher: Springer; 1 edition (August 29, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0387947973
• ISBN-13: 978-0387947976
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,523,946 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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10 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A detailed first-hand account of the Enola Gay controversy., July 31, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: An Exhibit Denied: Lobbying the History of Enola Gay (Hardcover)

Harwit provides a very detailed and personal account of the cancellation of the Enola Gay exhibit which was perhaps the worst tragedy to befall the public presentation of history in the U.S. in a generation.

When reading Harwit's account, one is reminded of what historian Joan Scott said, "There can be no democracy worthy of the name that does not entertain criticism, that suppresses disagreement, that refuses to acknowledge difference as inevitably disruptive of consensus, and that vilifies the search for new knowledge."

24 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's nobody's fault and everybody's responsibility, August 6, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: An Exhibit Denied: Lobbying the History of Enola Gay (Hardcover)

This is an amazing book. It gives us an idea of how far others will go to suppress the truth and how afraid of it they are...when they can only respond to truth as if they were in an arena of threat and attack...and so, riddled with that sort of delusive thinking, can only respond with threats and attacks themselves, which is what all those good old boys were doing when they started hyperventilating over the planned Enola Gay exhibit that Harwit was overseeing.

I was an American Legion student governor, as well as an American Legion counselor in a Boys State, government study program and I was a student of Martin Harwit's at Cornell University..both within a five year span. It was a Midwestern American Legion Boys State program of which I was damn proud. I'd met few "foreigners" prior to my arrival at Cornell and maintained a firm identity as a kind of "how the hell are ya, my name's _______ and I'm damn glad to meet ya" midwesterner. I was and am "damn proud" to be an American, more grateful and humbled to be an American than anything else. I accidentally landed in one of Mr. Harwit's College Scholar seminars at Cornell one semester and had a kind of intellectual epiphany over the next few months...about the relation of technique in the experimental sciences and the creative arts. Here was a real educator, a real scientist, a real man...who would invite you home for supper where you'd chat with his wife, while he chopped wood outside for the fireplace. As an All-American boy from the Midwest, I appreciated his values, I also appreciated his passion for truth.

Harwit had a painting in his home...of a woman's veiled face, it was a symbol of his own homeland of Czechoslovakia, and I learned that this man knew something about freedom and struggles that are fought for freedom. I understood from his story that he knew the prices that are paid for freedom...especially when it comes to speaking the truth to powerful institutions that can have very little interest in the truth, when the needs of that institution, or certain individuals within those institutions, are not met by the truth.

My brother was in the Navy. My father was in the Navy, served in WWII. I must admit how emabarassed I am when I see "servicemen" react to the facts, as laid out in Harwit's book, in such a cowardly, bullying way, as they did towards Mr. Harwit in Washington (when he was planning the exhibit) and how they do in some of these reviews here. I thought the whole point of being a true American, one who loved one's country, was having the guts to take a look at the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It's not people like Martin Harwit who make me ashamed of being an American, it's frightened little pups who don't know how to say, "it's nobody's fault and it's everybody's responsiblity" who try to shut people up, ruin people's lives when the truth doesn't agree with their "version" of it.

But I don't want to give the impression that I'm so naive to think that this doesn't happen in America. Nor do I think that Harwit was as "blind and naive" about the "wolves in the woods" as is suggested in a review here. But Harwit is responsible. Harwit did have a job to do. Harwit, a former serviceman himself, was going to do his duty...just like the pilot of the Enola Gay did his. He had to mount a responsible, thorough exhibit...as well researched and laid out as Harwitt expected our papers to be in his classes at Cornell.

Harwit, in taking responsiblity, invites and reaches out to others, to share in a dialogue, the kind of dialogue the Enola Gay exhibit would have sparked; but unfortunately, some cannot be reponsible for the dialogue, because they are afraid of their own damn shadows, they think that the hand of responsiblity or the process of paying attention and being heard is a fault-finding process, a finger pointing at them, because they feel guilty as hell inside, paranoid perhaps, but in reality, have nothing to fear.

Listen WWII veterans and all Americans and all Japanese citizens and all members of the global village: the atom bomb is nobody's fault...and it's everyone's responsiblity. Let's say it again just to make sure it's not misunderstood and nobody runs with a tail between their legs to get some politician to start censoring the internet, not because of the pornography that's all over it, but because somebody's saying it's America's fault that the bomb was dropped...no, listen: concerning the Atom Bomb: it's nobody's FAULT and it's everybody's responsibility. O.K.? Now...what are we gonna do about it? Do we have the abiity to respond and do we understand that we'll be saying quite a bit about ourselves in how we respond?

To avoid that responsiblity by getting itchie, bitchie and twitchie about something that doesn't make us feel like our patriotic poop tastes like chocolate ice cream...shows the real danger in America...not that of an atom bomb...but the way we think! It reminds me of what Albert Einstein once said, "...the unleashed power of the atom has changed everything...except our way of thinking..." Einstein understood, as demonstrated by the folks who attacked Harwit in D.C. and who still maintain that, in his book, he's trying to undermine the lives and efforts of American servicemen during WWII, that the way people think and act on their thoughts is far more dangererous than a bomb. Why, a split atom can change everything in the world...except for one thing: a stubborn, proud, nescient, fearful man's MIND.

We need to change the way we think about talking about the atom bomb and about what happened when the atom bomb was dropped...we need to learn how to be responsible in the way that Harwit teaches us to be. He has taught me more about real American values, especially when it comes to speaking the truth, facing the truth and taking responsiblity for the truth...than any politician in Washington D.C. ever could.

In the words of that great folksinger, Vern Partlow, who wrote the great tune, Old Man Atom, The Talking Atomic Blues...

"Yes, my brothers it's plain to see... old Man Atom is here to stay... but OH, my dearly beloved...are we?"

Thank you, Mr. Harwit, for all your efforts as an educator...and, as a true educator (educare) for all your efforts in leadership.

16 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A gripping tale of a true liberal torn to pieces by wolves, October 12, 1998

By 

Paul R. Callomon (Cherry Hill, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: An Exhibit Denied: Lobbying the History of Enola Gay (Hardcover)

In the relative peace which followed his resignation over the controversy surrounding the planned exhibition of the B-29 bomber 'Enola Gay',Martin Harwit, Astrophysicist and former Director of the Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution has penned an extraordinary work; the chronicle in painstaking detail of one man's naivety and gradual downfall by the man himself. Whether intentionally or not, Dr. Harwit's dry, objective setting out of the facts - correspondence, the times and places of meetings, what was said and what followed - serve only to sharpen the focus. Dragged through the fires by the media, berated publicly by veterans' groups backed by military organisations and finally betrayed by his new boss, Dr. Harwit nevertheless maintains even now a bemused detachment in addressing the extraordinary debacle his planned exhibit caused.From optimistic beginnings, the plan to exhibit the Enola Gay, the plane which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima,is systematically attacked by well-organised opponents, many of whom have parlayed a lifetime in the military into new, post-retirement careers in lobbying. These old warriors are shrewd, well-disciplined and adept both at networking and political horse-trading - all those things the hapless Dr. Harwit is not. He, nevertheless, believes from start to finish that everyone has a valid point of view and that all of them can be accomodated in a single, sprawling, unfocussed exhibit. His plans to include items showing the horrific effects of the explosion on the Japanese civilian victims outrage the veterans, to whom the Enola Gay was the Hammer of the Righteous, bringing a swift and ultimately humane end to a war which promised to drag on into a full-scale invasion of Japan. Dr. Harwit is unfailingly fair-minded and trusting, two major errors in this arena, and the reader cannot help but feel for this essentially decent man as he plods resolutely into deepening snowdrifts, the wolves padding out of the trees on all sides. He summons evidence which directly challenges the veterans' views about the likely progress of the war after spring 1945, and carefully dissects their largely specious arguments about the charter and mission of the Smithsonian. Ultimately, though, whether he is right or wrong is immaterial, for he has taken on a vastly superior enemy and his few friends abandon him one after the other. Finally, he is left to fall on his own sword, insisting to the last that compromise is possible and a way may still be found to placate all parties.For anyone interested in the way history is interpreted by those who weren't present at its making and the violent clash of these constructed views with the stark, ever-fresh memories of the veterans themselves this is a gripping read.Even those with little interest in military history or museum curation will find themselves rooting for one side or the other, and the denoument is as good as that of many a political thriller. Dr. Harwit is to be congratulated on his impartial account; the few places in which he allows himself a comment or occasional exclamation mark serve only to highlight the cold objectivity with which he presents the story of his own downfall. At the end, the reader is left with the abiding image of a plain, decent man wandering lost in a world of enemies, none of whom he had ever dreamed he had.