Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 24, 1994 TAG: 9404260010
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE CHRISTENSEN COX NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
its atomic mission over Hiroshima, Air Force veterans expected the kind of abstract dignity accorded the Wright brothers' flier or Charles Lindbergh's plane, the Spirit of St. Louis.
Museum curators had other ideas. Not only will the plane be shorn of its wings and tail to fit inside the gallery, but it must also share space with artifacts from the carnage on the ground, including photographs of victims and a child's lunch box filled with cinders.
Incensed B-29 veterans promptly signed petitions demanding that the museum either display the aircraft ``proudly and patriotically'' or give it to someone who would.
Curators were undeterred. ``If you really want to help people understand what the machines downstairs are all about,'' said Tom Crouch, a historian and chairman of the museum's aeronautical department, ``once in a while you have to do a show that puts an object in the broadest context, that tells the full story.''
Such views would have once bordered on heresy at the tweed and broadcloth Smithsonian Institution, whose 16 museums and galleries, half-dozen research centers and National Zoo make up the world's largest and most popular museum complex.
But as the Smithsonian approaches its 150th birthday next year, change is shaking the institution to its venerable roots on the National Mall.
nDeclining federal financial support are forcing program and personnel cutbacks once unheard of. Museums must now seek corporate sponsors for nearly every exhibition, with the Orkin pest control company financing an insect display and Times Mirror Magazines chipping in for ``the Ocean Planet.'' Admission to the popular museums remains free.
nPressures mount from within and without for museums to take more account of minorities in American life. A Museum of the American Indian is on the way, and one for African-Americans is proposed. Hispanic groups complain they are ignored.
nConservative politicians see a conspiracy of ``political correctness'' in some Smithsonian exhibitions. They complain about an unvarnished appraisal of the nation's westward expansion, ghetto life and the Alaskan oil spill.
nAnthropologist Robert McCormick Adams, only the ninth person to lead the Smithsonian as secretary, departs this fall after only 10 years at the helm. The Board of Regents, which includes the vice president and chief justice of the United States, has appointed a blue-ribbon commission to study the institution's future.
nDisney's plans for a history theme park in suburban Virginia threatens competition for tourists, though Smithsonian executives contend it will only complement their efforts. ``We're all in this together,'' Adams says.
nPublic relations gaffes have proved embarrassing. Two years ago, the institution was found to be paying the legal bills of a staff scientist accused of taking sport hunters along on expeditions to China and Pakistan. Protests followed a decision to license the reproduction of antique American quilts in China.
nAccelerating technology and changing generational tastes pose major challenges. Young visitors race for interactive computers and giant-screen IMAX films while parents linger over printed placards and Archie Bunker's chair.
For all these fissures, the Smithsonian remains a highly successful and immensely popular destination.
``Sure there are problems, but upwards of 26 million people come to visit the Smithsonian every year, and almost all of them have a wonderful time and go away having learned a great deal,'' said Maxine Singer, president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington and chairman of the 26-member commission on the Smithsonian's future.
``It is, in many ways, the only national institution that we have that focuses on the diversity of history, activities, geography, environment and so forth that we have in the country,'' said Singer, who confesses a particular fondness for the remnants of an ``automat'' restaurant in the basement of the Museum of American History, a reminder of her New York City childhood.
Evocative memorabilia, from the original Star Spangled Banner to Judy Garland's ruby slippers, is a main reason for the Smithsonian's popularity with the public and with Congress.
``It is a charming institution,'' admits Rep. David Skaggs, D-Colo., a member of the House subcommittee that last year approved some $342 million for the Smithsonian's upkeep.
It also is unique in federal Washington. Founded with a bequest from a British scientist who had never visited Washington, the Smithsonian receives 85 percent of its support from the federal government but remains semiautonomous. Even the Board of Regents meets in secret.
Individual museums enjoy a degree of independence reminiscent of a large university. Curators burrow comfortably into their research and collections, referring to distant Smithsonian executives collectively as ``the Castle.''
``People who come to work for the federal government have always done so on the assumption that these were permanent careers here,'' Adams said in a recent interview. ``There was a feeling that institutions had an indefinite prospect of expanding their range.''
Such an ingrained society has been deeply shaken by budget cuts and the need to collect private support. More popular museums have even adopted donation boxes, largely ignored by streams of visitors from around the world.
In the last eight years, several prominent museum directors have resigned, at least in part over financial pressures.
``It's a very challenging time for the institution as a whole, and I think it comes from the fact that the institution serves a huge number of members of the public annually, while at the same time it has awesome responsibilities in storing, maintaining, conserving the nation's cultural patrimony,'' said Edward Able Jr., executive director American Association of Museums.
Able believes that if the Smithsonian is going to be considered a national museum complex, its half-billion-dollar annual cost ought to be entirely financed by Congress. ``The total combined budgets in this country of all museums is roughly $5 billion a year,'' he said. ``It seems to me that we ought to be able to find sufficient federal dollars to at least fund our complex of national museums.''
Adams doesn't think that will ever happen, nor should it. ``Private funding has permitted a degree of openness to innovation'' that might be impossible under total federal control. ``The more likely direction of our future development,'' he said, ``will be toward increasing private support.''
When curators of the Air and Space Museum set about planning their Enola Gay exhibition in 1992, they decided not to seek private sponsorship, given the sensitive nature of the material.
They had been thinking about the exhibit for eight years, almost the whole time craftsmen at a suburban Maryland annex had been painstakingly restoring the aged bomber. The script for the presentation is now almost four inches thick. It has been revised many times.
``This is an exhibit that is about as sensitive as it can get on two continents,'' said Crouch, whose department has researched the exhibit. While the Japanese have trouble acknowledging their role in starting the Pacific war or atrocities their forces committed, Crouch said, Americans are reluctant to face the aftermath of the decision to use the first atomic bomb in war.
Said Michael J. Neufeld, the curator who wrote much of the script, ``I don't see how you can do an exhibit on the atomic bomb and leave out what happened after it went off.''
Like other Smithsonian museums, the staff of Air and Space is seeking a more objective presentation of history and American life. It does not come easily, however.
``People expect to find comfort and reassurance in museums - beautiful things beautifully displayed that make them feel good,'' Crouch said. ``I don't think anyone does that better than the Smithsonian does.''
``We're trying to shift the museum more towards a broader view of the history of aviation and space flight,'' Neufeld added, ``with more different points of view, more dimensions, a more realistic treatment of war. That makes our traditional constituency uncomfortable. It really does.''
by CNB