EEE会議（再び「エノラ・ゲイ」騒動.................................................................................2003.11.09


広島に原爆を投下した米軍機「エノラ・ゲイ」号がワシントンのダレス国際空港近く
のSteven Udvar-Hazy Centerに、この８月から永久展示されています。９年前スミソ
ニアン博物館で展示されたときもいろいろ物議を醸しましたが、今回も、同機が当時
世界最大かつ最新鋭の爆撃機であったという説明だけで、原爆投下のことに全く触れ
ておらず、この点が批判の的になっているようです。歴史学者、作家、反戦運動家な
ど約１００名が抗議の請願書に署名した由で、署名者たちは、原爆投下がなかったな
らば日本本土侵攻で死んだであろう米軍兵士の数（当初米軍当局は３〜５万人と想定
し、これがトルーマン大統領の決定の根拠となっていた）を戦後になって意図的に１
００万人に増やした「歴史のごまかし」なども問題とすべきだとしています。さら
に、米国が世界最強の軍事力を誇示しつつある現在、「エノラ・ゲイ」をこのような
名物扱いすること自体危険であって、同機は核兵器ついて国民的な議論を行なうため
の材料としてこそ使われるべきだ、と主張しており、署名者の一人、イェール大学の
歴史学者アグニュー教授は、「エノラ・ゲイ」は先制攻撃戦争への歴史を拓いたとし
て、現在のブッシュ政権のイラク戦争にも批判の矛を向けているようです。　詳細は
次のNY Times記事でどうぞ。
--KK

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Criticism Meets New Exhibit of Plane That Carried A-Bomb

By ELIZABETH OLSON

Published: November 2, 2003


WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 ? When officials at the Smithsonian Institution unveiled
a new home for the World War II bomber the Enola Gay in August, they had
hoped to avoid the kind of controversy that had previously plagued efforts
to exhibit the airplane that carried the first atomic bomb.

Not likely. Now a group of scholars, writers, activists and others have
signed a petition criticizing the exhibit for labeling the Enola Gay as "the
largest and most technologically advanced airplane for its time" without
mentioning that the Boeing B-29 dropped the bomb on Hiroshima.

"You wouldn't display a slave ship solely as a model of technological
advancement," said David Nasaw, a cultural historian at CUNY Graduate
Center, and one of more than 100 signers of the petition. "It would be
offensive not to put it in context."

Peter J. Kuznick, the director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American
University, who initiated the petition along with members of the antiwar
group Peace Action, emphasized that they were not opposed to the display.
"It is essential that the plane be displayed," Mr. Kuznick said, "but it
must include discussions about the decision to drop the bomb."

He said he and other signers hoped "to sit down with Smithsonian officials
to see the seriousness of this, and revise the exhibit."

Claire Brown, a spokeswoman at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space
Museum, said the Smithsonian would have no comment until the petition was
presented.

The Enola Gay is exhibited at the Steven Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles
International Airport in Virginia, with other vintage war planes. Its
explanatory placard includes the restored airplane's dimensions and the
information that while it was originally built to be used in the European
fighting theater, it found "its niche on the other side of the globe."

This is the second time the Smithsonian has been taken to task for its
display of the Enola Gay, named after the mother of its pilot, Paul Tibbets.
In 1994, war veterans criticized material in a planned Smithsonian exhibit,
claiming viewers could conclude that the Japanese were victims of American
aggression.

The groups also took issue with the number of Americans ? 30,000 to 50,000 ?
military officials anticipated would have been killed in an invasion of
Japan and which has been cited as the crucial factor in President Harry S.
Truman's decision to approve use of the bomb. The Smithsonian, which is
heavily supported by federal money, increased the estimate to one million,
which then drew historians' complaints of "historical cleansing." A
compromise was reached for a pared-down exhibit in 1995.

As it was before, the argument is as much about politics as history. The
intellectuals and activists who are lining up to oppose this "celebratory
treatment," say it is particularly dangerous at a time when the United
States is displaying its military might. They want the bomber to serve as a
catalyst for national debate on nuclear weapons.

"We've just broken ground in our history with a pre-emptive war," said
Jean-Christophe Agnew, a cultural historian at Yale University. He said said
there was much more public discussion between 1945 and 1947 about the wisdom
of the bombing, "there was a lot more openness, and a lot more doubt."

This is a "lie of omission," said the writer E. L. Doctorow, who signed the
petition. "To present this as a technological marvel with no reference to
the number of people killed ignores what happened when the bomb hit the
earth."