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ACROSS SESSIONS

• Subject Index: Since 1995
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1995 SESSION

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LD9847000
SENATE RESOLUTION NO. 30 Offered January 30, 1995 Memorializing Congress and the President to Cancel the Smithsonian Enola Gay Exhibit. ---------- Patrons--Woods, Quayle, Stosch and Waddell ---------- Consent to introduce ---------- Referred to the Committee on Rules ----------

WHEREAS, National Air and Space Museum officials, despite an accord reached in September, 1994, with American Legion officials representing the veterans' community, and in defiance of their Smithsonian Institution superiors, have restored to the "The Last Act: The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II." Exhibit highly debatable information which calls into question the morality and motives of President Truman's decision to end World War II quickly and decisively by using the atomic bomb; and

WHEREAS, the hundred of thousands of American men and women whose lives were thus spared by using the atomic bomb and who lived to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their historic achievement are, by this exhibit, now to be told that their lives were purchased at the price of American duplicity and revenge; and

WHEREAS, after months of research and direct negotiations with officials of the National Air and Space Museum, The American Legion has reluctantly concluded that further efforts to correct the politically charged Enola Gay exhibit are futile; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, by the Senate that the Enola Gay exhibit be canceled, that Congress investigate the process by which it was developed, and that the historic B-29, the Enola Gay, be displayed outside any political or philosophical context by an institution willing and able to do so; and, be it further

RESOLVED, that the Budget of the Smithsonian Institution/NASM include language that would preclude bias and/or historical revisionism, such as that perceived in the Enola Gay exhibit "The Last Act: The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II," in preparing historical exhibits; and, be it finally

RESOLVED, that the Clerk of the Senate transmit copies of this resolution to the President of the United States, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, the President of the United States Senate, the President pro tempore of the United States Senate, and the Virginia Congressional Delegation, so that they may be apprised of the sense of the Senate of Virginia.