While most people have been only reading about the recent debate concerning the proposed Enola Gay exhibit at the Smithsonian Institute, Dartmouth History Professor Marty Sherwin has been involved at the very center of that controversial debate.
Sherwin, director of the College's John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding, said together with a group of historians he hopes to bring part of that debate to Dartmouth this summer.
The Smithsonian Institute, located in Washington, D.C., was recently forced to scale back a planned display on the 50th anniversary of the first atomic bomb and the start of the nuclear era last month because of pressure from the American Legion and Congress.
Sherwin said the American Legion wanted to rewrite the text for the exhibit to remove any negative comments about the use of the bomb in Japan.
"The script was rewritten five times to conform with American Legion criticisms," Sherwin said. "Finally, it was clear they were not interested in any exhibit that did an honest job of history."
The exhibit was intended to feature the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber that dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 and provide the public with an understanding of how the Nuclear Age began.
According to the New York Times, more than 80 Republicans and Democrats in the House demanded that Smithsonian Institute Secretary I. Michael Heyman '51, former chair of Dartmouth's Board of Trustees, cancel the display and dismiss Martin Harwit, director of the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum.
Heyman recommended to the Smithsonian's Board of Regents that the exhibit be scaled back but refused to terminate Harwit.
"I was in Japan when the exhibit was canceled," Sherwin said. "Some Japanese reacted with disbelief that the United States, which has always promoted the idea that democratic societies depend on free and open debate, was essentially behaving as if it was a '1984' world."
Sherwin is a member of the Smithsonian's Historical Advisory Board, a panel of academic historians, journalists and military historians, that discussed the exhibit before its cancellation two weeks ago.
Sherwin said during an initial advisory board discussion he rebuked a planned script for the exhibit for not stating enough of the criticisms against the detonation of the atomic bomb 50 years ago. But an air force historian on the board demanded that the exhibit include more descriptions of Japanese aggression.
Harwit responded by expanding the exhibit to include photographs and text of Japanese militarism, such as the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.
Still, the Air Force Association and the American Legion, intent on changing the exhibit further, approached members of Congress. With a membership of 3.1 million veterans, many from World War II, the American Legion "flexed its muscles" Sherwin said.
Sherwin said the American Legion wanted to change the script by deleting paragraphs, documents, artifacts and displays that questioned the use of the atomic bomb and that showed damage inflicted on Japan, such as melted concrete and photographs of dead children.
These articles included estimates by the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the United States would suffer casualties of about 46,000 in a ground attack. Sherwin said these figures contradicted President Harry Truman's estimates of 500,000 deaths.
The American Legion also wanted to remove a statement by Secretary of War Henry Stimson that the bombing would be more useful in frightening the Soviet Union than defeating Japan and that modifying the terms of surrender would have won the war much faster.
"Instead of a historical discussion, it became a political issue," Sherwin said.
Sherwin then wrote a letter signed by about 100 historians to Heyman asking for a more honest representation of history and condemning the "historical cleansing."
"Veterans have come to adopt the nuclear bomb as a heroic symbol of American triumph," Sherwin said. "They feel that any questioning of that positive view of the bomb in some way taints the sacrifices of those who died in the war."
"Historians see it as though the soldiers died for principles -- democracy and open debate -- and to ignore evidence is to violate the values for what these soldiers and sailors died," he added.
Sherwin said he hopes Harwit's exhibit will be shown elsewhere without political interference.
