Research Journal #3: Enola Gay Meeting

http://www.afa.org/media/enolagay/11-19-93.asp

This document talks about the meeting before the Enola Gay display, in which the idea for the exhibit is discussed. One of the problems for the proposed plan is that there was not enough coverage on the background information of the event. Another problem is that there was too much sympathy for the Japanese people by using an in context approach. The official story in this case would be that the Americans dropped bombs on the innocent people of Japan, who did nothing wrong. This causes bias and also makes America look bad. These problems led to a new perspective, in which the Enola Gay should just be a militaristic item. This would be an in situ approach and would decrease the bias present in the current plan. Also, the number of casualties would not be present in the exhibit, which also decreases the sympathy on the Japanese. This lessens the emotional impact a viewer may have because of the large number of casualties. The ideas and views of the people present at this meeting cause the museum display to be more of an unemotional piece. This is because the in situ approach is taken for the exhibit causing the emotional side of the Enola Gay story to disappear.