August 19, 2003 By ELIZABETH OLSON WASHINGTON, Aug. 18 - The Smithsonian Institution, skirting the controversy in 1995 that enveloped its display of the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, adopted a minimalist approach today as it displayed the plane in a new setting. For the first time, the plane, considered by many a symbol of the atomic age, was assembled in the original state in which it flew over the city on Aug. 6, 1945. It dropped the bomb called Little Boy, killing 140,000 people. The toll surpassed 230,000 when tens of thousands more died of radiation. In 1995, the effort to show the Enola Gay in an exhibition at the National Air and Space Museum that examined the decision by the United States to drop two atomic bombs on Japan stirred fury among some American veterans. They said the explanatory materials emphasized that the Japanese were victims of American aggression. Veterans' groups wrangled with the Smithsonian, which receives more than two-thirds of its money from the government, over the number of Americans who would have been killed in an invasion. That was the crucial factor cited in President Harry S. Truman's approving the use of nuclear bombs. When the Smithsonian acted to increase the casualty estimate, to one million instead of the estimated 30,000 to 50,000 in the draft text, historians said the change amounted to "historical cleansing." A truncated exhibition followed. This time, the museum director, John R. Dailey, a retired Marine general, said, "we are focusing on the facts to allow people to view it based on their own beliefs." Standing under the Boeing Superfortress, which will be hoisted eight feet before the exhibition formally opens in a new branch of the museum on Dec. 15, General Dailey said written material about the plane, named after the mother of the pilot, Paul W. Tibbets, would "focus on the technological achievements, because we are a technological museum." "This plane was the largest and most technologically advanced airplane for its time," the director said. A nearby placard offers a two-paragraph explanation of how the plane, with pressurized crew compartments and originally designed for the European Theater, "found its niche on the other side of the globe." In the Pacific, the B-29's delivered conventional bombs, incendiary bombs and two nuclear weapons, the placard said. Ronald F. Conley, national commander of the American Legion, which led the fight against the 1995 exhibition, said, "As long as the Enola Gay is presented in the light that it was used - to end the war and save lives - that's fine." A spokesman for the Air Force Association, which also protested that exhibition, said, "We are satisfied that it is in historical context this time and does not make comments about U.S. aggression in the Pacific." This is the first time that the aircraft, one of 15 B-29's modified for secret bombing, has been reassembled to its condition on its mission day. After a 10-year $1 million renovation, its 60-foot front fuselage was displayed at the museum on the Mall. The entire propeller-driven bomber, which has a 141-foot wingspan and weighs 137,500 pounds, is too large for the museum, one of the most visited in the country. It is being housed in the new Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles International Airport. It was trucked this year to the center in Chantilly, Va., in 12 loads from the Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration and Storage Facility in Suitland, Md. The plane was in so many pieces that even the original Boeing manuals did not provide enough of a guide for the restorers, said Thomas H. Alison, chief of collections at the Air and Space Museum. Although 4,000 B-29's were built and 580 were lost in combat, 35 survive. Most have been turned into scrap, said Dik A. Daso, curator of the aeronautics collection. The plane that dropped the second atomic bomb, on Nagasaki, is on display at the United States Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company