FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Air and Space Museum Continues Revisionist Line on World War II

Arlington, VA, August 10, 1994 -- The Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum continues to ignore criticism from veterans groups, military historians, and members of Congress directed at its plans for a 1995 exhibit that takes a revisionist approach to the atomic bombing of Japan in World War II.

In an upcoming article in AIR FORCE Magazine, Editor in Chief John Correll writes that the revised plans for the museum's exhibit, recently renamed "The Last Act: The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II," still include a unilateral emphasis on Japanese suffering in the war and excessive use of provocative Ground Zero pictures and artifacts. In contrast, the plans only pay slight attention to events prior to 1945.

According to Correll, the curators have chosen to use the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb in World War II, as a prop in "an emotionally charged program about the atomic bomb." The revised script is still unbalanced and still fails to provide adequate historical context for understanding the events of August 1945.

Air Force Association Executive Director Monroe Hatch, Jr., said, "How can anyone watch the last act of a play and fully understand what the play is all about? Such a treatment provides neither context nor balance." The museum's "Last Act" devotes less than one page out of 295 text pages to explaining Japanese military activities and atrocities. By contrast, it uses 84 pages and 97 photos to hammer away at Japanese suffering from the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

While Correll cites some minor improvements in the new exhibit script, he points out that some of the most offensive passages have been only slightly modified. For example, the original script stated:

"For most Americans, this war was fundamentally different from the one waged against Germany and Italy -- it was a war of vengeance. For most Japanese, it was a war to defend their unique culture against Western imperialism."

The new script allows the following changes:

"For most Americans, this war was different from the one waged against Germany and Italy: it was a war to defeat a vicious aggressor, but also a war to punish Japan for Pearl Harbor and for the brutal treatment of Allied prisoners. For most Japanese, what had begun as a war of imperial conquest had become a battle to save their nation from destruction."

Despite such minor changes, the "tilt" of the exhibit is highly partisan, Correll writes. He notes that the script is interspersed with "Historical Controversies," such as: Would the Bomb Have Been Dropped on the Germans? Did the Demand for Unconditional Surrender Prolong the War? How Important Was the Soviet Factor in the Decision to Drop the Bomb? Was a Warning or Demonstration Possible? Was an Invasion Inevitable Without the Bomb? Was the Decision to Drop the Bomb Justified?

Overall, Correll concludes, the undertone is one of suspicion about why the United States used the atomic bomb. In fact, "museum officials have seemed reluctant to accept the explanation that it was a military action, taken to end the war and save lives."

Correll also points out that museum officials have been mischaracterizing the views of military historians, especially those of Air Force Historian Dr. Richard Hallion. Contrary to out-of-context remarks ascribed to him by museum officials, Hallion states, "The overall impression gained from 'The Last Act' is that the Japanese, despite years of aggression and wanton atrocities and brutality, remain the victims. The culprits in this version of history are the American strategic bombing campaign (against civilians) and those who directed and implemented it."

####

You may contact the Air Force Association at 1501 Lee Highway, Arlington, Virginia, 22209-1198, or by email: com@afa.org