NY Times: A Big Museum Opens, to Jeers as Well as Cheers (Enola Gay) [View All]

A Big Museum Opens, to Jeers as Well as Cheers

CHANTILLY, Va., Dec. 15 — The Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum opened a vast, gleaming new building on the edge of Dulles International Airport here on Monday, filled with aircraft of every description, including the B-29 that carried the first atomic bomb dropped on Japan.

The opening was mobbed not only by tourists and aviation buffs but also by several dozen protesters, who said the bombing of Hiroshima should have been better described. A plaque in front of the B-29, the Enola Gay, describes it as "the most sophisticated propeller-driven bomber of World War II" and notes that it dropped the bomb, but tells little more.

"If you're going to display it at all, you have to display it with what it did to human beings," said Joseph Gerson, program coordinator of the American Friends Service Committee.

But Gen. John R. Dailey, director of the Air and Space Museum, said the purpose of his institution was to stimulate interest in technology and science. "The political aspects are more difficult to cover in three paragraphs," said General Dailey, a retired Marine pilot. The plaque has 14 lines of text, similar in length to the descriptions of other historic craft here.

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A Big Museum Opens, to Jeers as Well as Cheers

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