ENOLA GAY . . . SMITHSONIAN FLINCHES

The Smithsonian Institution today said it would delete controversial portions of a plannedexhibit featuring the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima, in a bow to pressure from outraged WWII veterans groups and their supporters in Congress. "We made an error," said Smithsonian Secretary Michael Heyman. The 100,000 square-foot exhibit revised downward the official estimate of the number of American lives saved by the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to 63,000, from several hundred thousand. In addition, it focused on pictures and narrative about the Japanese who suffered and died. Rep. Peter Blute (R-Mass.), one of the congressional critics, said the original exhibit amounted to "a politically correct diatribe on the nuclear age." The Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., now will simply display the famous bomber's fuselage and show a video of its crew.