Former Navy Aviator to Pilot Museum
Retired Vice Adm. Donald M. Engen was named director of the National Air and Space Museum on Thursday and firmly rebuffed questions about the Enola Gay/atomic bomb exhibit that cost his predecessor his job.
“I wasn’t here at that time,” Engen said of last year’s controversy that raised the hackles of World War II veterans.
The current display is a toned-down version of the planned exhibit, which critics said would have depicted the United States as the aggressor and Japan as the victim of World War II.
The revision also was criticized: Some historians and peace activists said the museum submitted to censorship by presenting a simpler show uncritically accepting the view that the bombing saved countless lives by hastening Japan’s surrender without a costly U.S. invasion.
“The exhibit today is a good exhibit,” Engen told a news conference. Engen, 72, is a former Navy test pilot and Federal Aviation Administration chief. He will assume his new duties in July.
His predecessor, Martin Harwit, resigned in May 1995.
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