Reagan and the Enola Gay

Wallace presents a critical view of Ronald Reagan's presidency in his chapter about the politics of history. These two subjects are inseparable to Wallace, as he has stated earlier in his book. Reagan makes the perfect example of why it can be harmful to abuse the combination of history and politics. The political power given to Reagan made him a trustworthy figure, the embodiment of "America" and its people. This power was abused when he gave did not give the public factual information historical information, and on several occasions flat out lied about historical events.

Identifying Reagan's behavior as a product of Hollywood, Wallace believes Reagan was trained to lie in the film industry. This affected Reagan's future in politics because of the content of films during the era. The vast majority of Hollywood films produced while Reagan was an actor during the 1930s and 1940s touted American patriotism and portrayed historical American events. Wallace concludes that these films led Reagan to believe that he was a part of these fictional versions of historical events, and his position of political power allowed for Reagan to share these untrue stories.

Wallace probes further into Reagan's presidency when he asks why Americans believed the revisionist history they were hearing. He attributes this phenomenon to the post-war disillusionment of Vietnam and the need to grasp a new and improved version of America's past. As one writer calls it, Reagan lies were "an orgy of re-illusionment". While many people rushed to embrace this version of history, thinking it was better to embrace myths than relive the truth, Wallace is very opposed to this idea. He believes it is actually better to confront the unpleasant or controversial things in history rather than write the story all over again. Wallace says that history is not comforting, but rather it is supposed to continually challenge us to collectively remember the past and engage with the realities of historical events.

The same can be said for the controversial Enola Gay exhibit at the Smithsonian. Wallace draws a parallel between the exhibit and Reagan's abuse of history and politics. A strong advocate for museums, Wallace presents the challenges faced by the Smithsonian's staff when they were confronted with telling the story of the atomic bombs and the challenge of presenting it to a public audience. Instead of taking the Reagan approach and seeping the exhibit in American patriotism, the first draft of the show was balanced and allowed for an American and Japanese perspective to be represented.

Then politics got in the way, and the Reaganising began. The first draft was targeted by governmental and military groups who called the exhibit revisionist and unpatriotic. This is because the National Air and Space Museum was founded by an ex-military man and curated by ex-military for years, and America had always been portrayed in a positive light under their reign. The groups who protested even went so far as to call into question the backgrounds of the exhibit curators, claiming they were un-American and presenting their personal views in the show. This damaging behavior led to multiple revisions of the exhibit, and eventually the original historical integrity of the show was breached due to political pressure.

Armed with the examples of Reagan and the Enola Gay, Wallace makes his final point about the responsibilities of historians to preserve America's history. He says they must continue to push the boundaries of accepted historical narratives to cultivate pride and not shame about the past. It is essential for museums to be engaged in current debates and have authentic voices represented in relevant exhibits in order to ensure future success. If museums retreated to the Reagan view of ignoring or rewriting the unpleasant, they would be headed for disaster. Instead, museums and historians now must embrace controversy and factual history, and continue to build bridges and trusting relationships with the community.