Saturday, August 21, 2010

Nixon Library and Watergate Exhibit

It seems there's another historical exhibit flap brewing. Back in 1994, a Smithsonian exhibit on the Hiroshima bombing was canceled over protests that its content was one-sided. For a marvelous website related to the controversy, click here: http://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/trial/enola/.
Today, there is a similar controversy brewing over a planned National Archives-curated exhibit about Watergate planned for the Nixon presidential library in California. Here is a story from the Seattle Times: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2012565135_watergate08.html
And here is an editorial from the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/21/opinion/21sat4.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y.
This is an important question for anyone interested in history and our national story. It is nothing less than the momentous decision of who gets to tell the story that the public will see and remember. Will it be private citizens and pressure groups or will it be professionals trying to objectively present evidence or will it be some combination thereof? I invite you to consider this story and then think about what we know about our national past and where that information has come from....

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