The Smithsonian Institution, and its Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III, have been under pressure for well over a year, with President Donald Trump and his administration trying a variety of tactics to compel the Institution to change its framing or approach to US History. That campaign reached its highest flashpoint last summer when Bunch and the president sat for a two-and-a-half hour lunch over their differing views on museum curation.
Now, in a profile of Bunch for the Atlantic, writer Clint Smith reveals what actually happened at the lunch, at least according to several unnamed White House and Smithsonian officials.
In Smith’s retelling, the lunch contained no grand showdown, but rather turned into a “charm offensive” by Trump. Over chicken and gravy, Trump asked Bunch his opinion on four chandelier samples for the Oval Office; discussed the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which Trump has proposed painting white; and talked about Republican calls to relocate the space shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum annex to Houston. And, in Trump’s signature free-associative manner, the discussion of the shuttle quickly segued to how ugly he finds Washington Dulles International Airport, which is next door to the annex and which Trump floated “knocking down” and rebuilding, named after him of course.
Strangely, per Smith, Trump never raised the issue of the Smithsonian’s telling of American history; last November, Bunch described his and Trump’s conversation as having “no logic.”
The battle between the Smithsonian and the White House has mostly turned to a simmer since that meeting last summer. Smith seems to posit that is owed to Bunch’s tactfulness in dealing with the administration: he has mostly complied with the administration’s demands for internal documents, but he maintains that he has not changed exhibits or curatorial materials in response to their demands. In internal messaging to staff, Bunch has steadfastly asserted the Institution’s independence, while not mentioning Trump by name. He has used that same approach at private events, per Smith.
“Let me be really clear,” Bunch said in March at an event with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, according to the Atlantic. “There is not a thing that I’ve allowed to be changed at the Smithsonian. I don’t care what you hear. The artifacts that are there are still there. The interpretations are still there.”
The lingering question raised but unanswered in the profile is how long Bunch can or will want to continue to fight back. Smith reports that Bunch’s family has been pushing him to retire, and the terms of many of the Institution’s Board of Regents are set to expire this year. If Bunch leaves, or the new Regents skew more Trumpist, the Smithsonian’s reputed independence could crumble.
