Atomic battle at museum.

• Position: National

The Enola Gay, the airplane that dropped the world's first atomic bomb in warfare, is still a controversial symbol, 58 years later. The display of the Enola Gay at the Smithsonian's new branch of the National Air and Space Museum outside Washington, D.C., notes that the plane dropped the bomb, calls it "the most sophisticated propeller-driven bomber of World War II," and includes statistics about it. But a petition from 100 scholars and writers argued that the exhibit, which opened amid protests in December, should be used to "stimulate a national discussion of U.S. nuclear history and current policy." The Enola Gay, a B-29, dropped an atomic...