Conflicting Narratives: A Wreck at The Crossroads

Abstract

"There were two points everyone agreed on. One, this is a historically significant aircraft. Two, no matter what the museum did, we'd screw it up" ーMartin Harwit. On 6 August 1945, the Enola Gay dropped the first and second to last atomic bomb to be used in a combat role. This moment marked one of, if not the defining, moments of the 20th Century. The event rested at the intersection of two eras. It punctuated the end of a Hot War, which had begun fifteen years earlier and engulfed the world by 1941; and ushered in the beginning of a Cold War, which would leave civilization in the anxious shadow of nuclear extinction for the next half century. Not only did the bomb incinerate much of the city of Hiroshima, but the mushroom cloud seared its imprint into the fabrics of history and memory. Fifty years later, The National Air and Space Museum (NASM) attempted to address the pivotal event of the century by staging an exhibit centered on the Enola Gay. They were planning an exhibit to open in May of 1995, just in time for the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II. The exhibit title, The Crossroads: The End of World War II, The Atomic Bomb and the Origins of the Cold War, encapsulated the intent of the museum curators to join the stories of the two eras around the iconic object that linked them. The exhibit team was responding to a change sweeping the greater museum community, which put an increasing emphasis on public education as a fulfillment of their social contract. Exhibit planners sought to include the latest in scholarly research in hopes of creating a reasonable dialogue on a decidedly difficult subject. Veterans' groups also wanted to see the Enola Gay exhibited, but on entirely different terms. For them, the plane had brought about the end of a bitter struggle which had taken the lives of their countrymen and friends. Now approaching the end of their lives, the veterans wished to see the icon they believed granted them the past fifty years of their lives. The 50th anniversary of the end of the war demanded a commemorative voice. The veterans wanted an exhibit that honored their service and the service of their friends who perished in the fight for Freedom.