The Enola Gay and the Smithsonian

In 1994, the National Air and Space Museum planned to exhibit the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, as part of a political horror show. A raging controversy ensued when Air Force Magazine and the Air Force Association brought the plans to the notice of the public, the news media, and Congress. In 1995, the museum’s parent organization, the Smithsonian Institution, pulled the plug on the original exhibition and replaced it with a straightforward program that eventually became the most popular exhibition in the museum’s history. Here are the contemporary articles, reports, and documents—drawn upon by all parties to the controversy—that were the raw materials for the argument in 1994 and 1995.