September 27, 1994

Dr. Martin Harwit 
Director  
National Air and Space Museum  
Smithsonian Institution  
Washington, D.C. 20560

Dear Martin:

            I am writing in response to your letter of September 21. While your August 31 script was an improvement

The Air Force Association
Detailed analysis of Enola Gay script
October 17, 1994

This is an analysis of the October 3, 1994, revision -- explained to us as an interim product -- of the National Air and Space Museum exhibition script, "The Last Act: The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II." This interim revision, as we understand it, is intended only as a quick check and will be followed promptly by publication of the next regular revision for broader distribution.¹

Summary of Assessment: Definite improvement, but problems still evident.

• On the positive side, the Smithsonian has added balancing material (especially in the early parts of the script), has eliminated the "political manifesto" that was in the last section, and has reduced the number of emotional graphic images in the "Ground Zero: Hiroshima and Nagasaki" section.
  
   

• Unfortunately, the built-in structural bias of the exhibit plan remains. It leads the visitor, step by step, to the "Ground Zero" section where the curators pull their planned emotional trigger. Our suggestion to diversify this section has not been accepted. Furthermore, the script still shows a pervasive ideological bias. Much of the blatant anti-American speculation has been removed, but the curators continue to play "hindsight" games in regard to US motives and actions while accepting Japanese statements and actions uncritically.

Main Unit Titles. The exhibition script is now organized into six sections with main unit titles as follows:

000    War in the Pacific

100    A Fight to the Finish

200    The Decision to Drop the Bomb

300    Enola Gay: The B-29 and the Atomic Missions

400    Hiroshima and Nagasaki

500    Japan Surrenders

Section 000 is a recent add-on. Eventually, this part of the exhibition will cover 4,000 square feet of floor space, but the plan for it thus far consists of only nine pages in the script. A notation says the photos and wall labels shown now are a "partial representation" of the product intended.( An early subtitle for this unit, "An American Perspective," has been deleted.)

With the exception of this unfinished add-on segment up front, the revisions consist of line-in, line-out changes. Many of these are commendable, but they do not correct the structural bias problem. AFA's proposal to subdivide and reallocate the floor space in the "Ground Zero" section was an attempt to relieve this problem with a minimum amount of disruption to the exhibit plan. The museum did not adopt this suggestion.

The curators are still cutting corners on historical context (a point made in our September 19 analysis of the previous script). The leaders of twelve Asian-American groups have offered to provide material from archives in China and elsewhere to document Japan's fifteen-year war of aggression. Smithsonian officials would do well to avail themselves of this offer, because additions and improvements are certainly required. The carnage at Nanking in 1937, for example, needs more than three lines of text and a single photo. Tell museum visitors with an emphasis that cannot be missed that the wanton slaughter of civilians at Nanking exceeded the death toll of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined, and that this atrocity was a planned action to intimidate the Chinese and make subjugation by the Japanese invaders easier.

Ideological Bias. Here are instances in which one-sided speculation continues or where the script obscures points that we take to be unpalatable to the curators.

1. The script says that the "Magic" and "Ultra" intelligence systems yielded "A Confusing Picture of Japanese Intentions." (200 30) Magic intercepts showed that the Japanese rejected unconditional surrender and were holding out for terms that might have included -- incredibly -- their keeping the territories they had captured. The Ultra intercepts revealed a massive buildup in the areas where an American invasion would have occurred. There might have been some confusion around the edges, but the main points of Japanese intent were abundantly clear.

2. A previous line of speculation continues in "Hindsight: Was an Invasion Inevitable Without the Bomb?" (200 53) The script notes, correctly, the assessment in 1946 in the US Strategic Bombing Survey that Japan would have "in all probability" surrendered by December 31, 1945, even if the atomic bomb had not been used. That conclusion was not universally shared. Presented here in isolation, it may lead the unwary museum visitor to conclude that all the US had to do was sit tight and wait. By the summer of 1945, US casualties were running at 900 a day in the Pacific. At that rate, had the war continued through August, September, October, November, and December, it would have meant 137,000 additional US casualties and a greater number, most likely, for the Japanese. Previously, AFA suggested "Nine Hundred a Day" as a prominent display element in section 200.This element could be built around the Purple Heart medal, a vast number of which were ordered in 1945 in anticipation of casualties from the invasion of Japan. Fifty years and numerous conflicts later, the armed forces are still drawing on the supply of unused Purple Hearts.

3. "The Verge of Surrender" Issue. It is a major point with some revisionist historians that Japan was on the verge of surrender. The script seems determined to state the truth of this as inconspicuously as possible.

• (Reference 200 60.) Japanese rejection of the warning in the Potsdam Proclamation is buried in the last paragraph of this element, called "An Ultimatum to Japan." The text continues to pick at the unconditional surrender issue. Once the Japanese rejected the warning, the text says, "nothing further stood in the way of using the atomic bomb." Surely the curators do not believe that the United States would have regarded a favorable response from Japan at this point as "standing in the way" of using the bomb?
  
  The same underlying attitude is seen in "An Expectation of Military Use" (200 13) which characterizes the motivation of General Groves, who has fared badly from the beginning in planning documents for this exhibit. The October script says that "The United States' huge investment in the atomic bomb -- $2 billion, or roughly $20 billion in 1990s dollars -- also drove Major General Groves to demonstrate that the money had not been wasted." Are we to understand from this that General Groves (and perhaps others) wanted to use the bomb to justify the expense?
  
   

• (Reference 500 11.) The title chosen for this element is "Enduring the Unendurable," emphasizing the bitterness of surrender to the Japanese. As shown by the text, however, the important point is that "Prime Minister Suzuki told his American interrogators after the war that the atomic bomb had enabled his military colleagues to surrender honorably." Given the fierce debate, in which this exhibit plan has been a part, this point needs a spotlight on it. Moreover, Suzuki's is not the only testimony available : "The peace party did not prevail until the bombing of Hiroshima created a situation that could be dramatized." -- EmperorHirohito, September 27, 1945.(Edward Behr. Hirohito. Villard Books, 1989, p. xvii.)

4. The "Unconditional Surrender" Issue. The curators simply will not let go of the notion that the policy of demanding Japan's unconditional surrender was (a) unreasonable, (b) prolonged the war needlessly, and (c) foiled Japan's earnest desire to make peace. Consider the relentless pursuit of this point.

• The script says the Allies forced "complete and unconditional surrender" on Germany having "won total victory in a just cause." (100 1.) Nothing comparable is said about the war in the Pacific -- and a very different conclusion is implied.
  
   

• Japan's position is described sympathetically in "Japan Looks for a Way Out of the War" (200 24). The peacemakers were at work, but the allied demand for unconditional surrender was "regarded as intolerable." The emperor's "closest adviser" tried to negotiate conditions through Moscow. (200 25) The only reason the emperor did not take action for peace sooner was the hope "that one final victory would force the Allies to offer better peace terms." (200 26)
  
   

• The script leaves the impression that the policy of unconditional surrender was adopted to placate Soviet dictator Stalin or to appeal to popular opinion in the United States. President Truman stuck with the demand for Japan's unconditional surrender because he "foresaw much resistance to modifying the Allied policy." (200 27-28). Truman did not accept Japan's appeal for conditions, not because of conviction but because Secretary of State Byrnes told him that doing so "would lead to 'the crucifixion of the President' by an angry public demanding unconditional surrender." (500 6)
  
   

• Among those arguing for a conciliatory policy was Undersecretary of State (and former Ambassador) Joseph Grew, who "understood the mentality of the Japanese leadership and wanted to end the war early. . . " (200 29)
  
   

• The combination of the atomic attacks and the Soviet declaration of war "destroyed the hopes of the Japanese elite for a compromise peace." (500 1)
  
   

• The previous script (August 31) said that "The failure of the American note of August 10 to clearly identify the Emperor's position provoked another dangerous deadlock in the Japanese ruling elite." (500 10). As we said in our analysis, "do the curators mean to suggest by that wording that the United States was to blame for Japan's reluctance to surrender, even after the atomic bomb had been dropped?" The latest revision eliminates "failure" but mostly pushes the words around (500 9): "The American note of August 10 did not clearly guarantee the Emperor's position. This provoked another dangerous deadlock in the Japanese ruling elite."
  
   

• It should come as no suprise that the text item the curators have chosen to end the program (500 21) mulls "the possibility (we'll never know for sure) that if we had offered to let the Emperor remain in some capacity (as some of Truman's advisors suggested to him, such as former president Hoover), that the Japanese might have surrendered sooner, with a saving of lives on both sides and without the dropping of the atomic bomb."

The Ground Zero Section. Only a few minor changes have been made to the text for Section 400, "Ground Zero." The overall structure and floor plan are the same as before. We are encouraged, however, to see that the Smithsonian has made significant, further reductions to the emotion-packed visual elements in this section.