Displaying the Enola Gay, Hiding Hiroshima‪.‬

In 1995, a national, then global furore was whipped up by ideological, cultural and aesthetic conflict over displaying parts and pieces of the then not fully restored Enola Gay. The emblematic components of this B-29 bomber put on display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC (1) were meant to anchor a particular type of historical exhibition. Most importantly, its curators designed the exhibition so as to examine the motives, practices and after-effects of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Martin Harwit, Director of the National Air and Space Museum, said at the time: The culture wars of the 1990s, however, turned this admirable academic aspiration into grist for innumerable polemics as both pro- and anti-Hiroshima activists manoeuvered back and forth through the media about the possible merits or demerits of dropping the 'Little Boy' U-238 atomic bomb over Hiroshima.