Martin Harwit


Martin Harwit is a Czech-American astronomer, author, and was director of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. from 1987 to 1995. He is known for his scientific work on Infrared astronomy, as a professor at Cornell University.

''Enola Gay'' controversy

In 1994 Harwit became embroiled in public debate when his work on the Enola Gay exhibit, marking the 50th anniversary of the 1945 Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was accused of being "revisionist history" for including Japanese accounts of the attack and photographs of the victims, and for presenting an exhibit script that critics alleged "depicted the Japanese as victims of a United States motivated by vengeance."
Two of the lines about the war in the Pacific became infamous: The immediately preceding two sentences did acknowledge that Those lines, in turn, were immediately preceded by
The controversy led Harwit to resign as director of the National Air and Space Museum in May 1995.

Honors

Named after him