Good history teachers understand and use controversy

History presents all the facts, warts and all, examines both the negative and positive actions of Americans, encourages students to think about social justice and social change, and promotes real understanding of historical issues and events and critical analysis of our nation's domestic and foreign policies.

Indeed, the very act of examining history is controversial because everyone brings their own viewpoint, their own perspective to any examination off historical figures and events. We have a fairly recent example of how controversial history can be, how it was held hostage, and how it dramatically affected the telling of history - the Enola Gay Exhibit at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum. In 1995, the museum was scheduled to open a new exhibition for its 50th anniversary observance. "The Last Act: The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II" was destined to be the most bitterly contested museum exhibit in US history.

• The controversy began in 1994 when the Air Force Association and other veterans groups censured the exhibition script, complaining that the curators planned to ask visitors to consider the moral and political dimensions of Truman's decision to drop the bomb and to view photographs of charred women and children in Hiroshima. The veterans argued that this would arouse the idea that the Japanese were victims rather than the aggressors in WWII.
• The museum responded by agreeing to revise the script and to eliminate all references to the fact that Truman's government intensely debated the advantages and disadvantages of dropping the bomb. Historians then retorted that the script has been "historically cleansed." Essentially, two divergent viewpoints had developed:
  • One viewpoint believed that the exhibit's goal was to celebrate American technology and victory by commemorating the atomic bomb as the redemptive ending of a horrible war.
  • The other viewpoint believed the exhibit should provide a forum for diverse interpretations of the complex historical events surrounding the controversy about dropping the bomb, as well as for reminding visitors about the devastation caused by the bomb and the enduring nuclear danger.
• The debate intensified with the November 1994 election. Newly elected Republican Congresspersons insisted that the Air Force veterans should have veto power over the way this particular story was told. The Senate voted unanimously for a resolution condemning the exhibit's script as "revisionist, unbalanced, and offensive." The struggle ended with two actions:
  • In January 1995, the Smithsonian's new director agreed to cancel the exhibit and replace it with a display of the Enola Gay fuselage accompanied by a simple identifying plaque.
  • In May, after 81 members of Congress called for his resignation, the exhibit director Martin Harwit resigned his post as director of the Air and Space Museum.

The decision to cancel was a big price to pay for historians. In essence, the message was that a historical exhibit may not be suitable unless it passes a congressional litmus test. Indeed, the decision signaled that politicians were prepared to proclaim what is historically correct or incorrect - in other words, they agreed to create "official history." This point was particularly well expressed in a New York Times editorial:

"It is understandable that veterans who fought in the war and might have been ordered to invade Japan view the bombing ... as a life-saving reprieve. To question the decision, even in a balanced exhibit, may strike them as unpatriotic. But the real betrayal of American tradition would be to insist on a single version of history or to make it the property of the state or any group. History in America is based on freedom of inquiry and discussion, which is one reason why Americans have given their lives to defend it."

This struggle is but a magnified version of what some of you may face when you try to present both sides of the story, when you bring controversy into the classroom. You must be prepared for a debate!