Toby Grills Smithsonian Curators on Veterans' Pearl Harbor Boycott
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Toby enters the room to meet with Smithsonian curators Evan Woodkirk and Mary Kline, setting the stage for a discussion about the veterans' boycott.
Toby asks the curators why veterans are unhappy with the Smithsonian's Pearl Harbor exhibit, probing into the controversy.
Evan and Mary explain the veterans' concerns about the exhibit's commentary on racist propaganda posters and the provocative title "America's Vengeance."
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Calm defensiveness shielding institutional conviction against White House pressure.
Rises to greet Toby warmly by name, introduces exhibit context, downplays USF boycott scale (2,000 members, 30 attendees), fields questions on veterans' propaganda poster grievances, confirms Toby's material review after lunchbox query.
- • Minimize perceived impact of boycott to safeguard event
- • Educate on exhibit's historical accuracy to preempt criticism
- • Boycott from tiny USF faction won't derail Smithsonian programming
- • Propaganda posters demand unflinching racist contextualization
Steady assurance masking mild defensiveness under scrutiny.
Introduces herself crisply, dismisses boycott's threat by noting empty seats can be filled, elaborates on propaganda posters' racist nature citing 'The Sowers' skull-tossing barbarians imagery under Toby's probing.
- • Defend exhibit's interpretive integrity against veteran backlash
- • Convey that protest lacks substantive disruption potential
- • WWII posters' fear-mongering racism merits explicit exhibit condemnation
- • Institutional attendance won't suffer from minor boycott
Determined focus laced with concern over political fallout, shifting to pragmatic resolve amid interruption.
Enters conference room purposefully, greets curators cordially but launches into pointed interrogation on exhibit controversies and boycott risks, reveals personal review of materials to assert authority, then steps into hallway for terse crisis exchange with Leo on mad cow secrecy.
- • Gauge and neutralize veterans' boycott threat ahead of his meeting
- • Protect President's image at exhibit opening by understanding controversies
- • Even small veteran protests carry outsized political peril
- • Exhibit's blunt historical critique risks alienating sacred national reverence
Urgent gravity tempered by resolute command, prioritizing crisis protocol.
Knocks urgently on conference room door, politely interrupts with apology, draws Toby into adjacent hallway for confidential briefing on Nebraska's presumptive mad cow positive awaiting UK lab confirmation in 72 hours, directs consultation with CJ amid her transparency push and President's input request.
- • Loop Toby into mad cow secrecy strategy before escalation
- • Align communications team despite internal disagreements
- • Mad cow info must stay contained pending confirmation
- • President's fuller input essential for high-stakes decisions
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
Mary Kline vividly invokes 'The Sowers' propaganda poster—depicting Japanese as hulking barbarians hurling human skulls—to exemplify the exhibit's commentary on WWII posters' racism, fueling Toby's probe into veterans' ire and crystallizing the history-vs-reverence fault line at the meeting's core.
Toby weaponizes the 'America's Vengeance' section's burnt child's lunchbox contents—seared emblem of atomic horror—to challenge curators' provocative framing, confirming his material review and escalating debate on exhibit's emotional gut-punch amid boycott risks.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
Serves as hasty spillover for Leo's clandestine mad cow briefing to Toby post-interruption, its transient shadows enabling terse crisis whispers on secrecy rifts, underscoring relentless West Wing crisis cascade derailing prior agendas.
Hosts Toby's high-stakes interrogation of curators on exhibit thorns, from boycott downplay to poster provocations, its closed confines amplifying verbal sparring until Leo's knock fractures the standoff, embodying White House's crucible for cultural-political collisions.
Organizations Involved
Institutional presence and influence
Manifests through curators Evan Woodkirk and Mary Kline actively defending Pearl Harbor exhibit's curatorial choices—racist poster critiques and vengeance relics—against White House queries on USF boycott, positioning Smithsonian as truth-teller in reverence's crossfire.
Looms as boycott antagonist via curators' reluctant disclosures—2,000 members strong, 30 protestors over 'racist' labels and lunchbox horror—framing USF grievances for Toby's prep, igniting White House entanglement in veterans' honor vs. historical candor.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Toby's meeting with the veterans follows his earlier discussion with Smithsonian curators about the exhibit complaints."
"Toby's meeting with the veterans follows his earlier discussion with Smithsonian curators about the exhibit complaints."
Key Dialogue
"TOBY: Tell me why I'm talking to you."
"MARY: These were fear-inspiring posters. They were incredibly racist."
"TOBY: "Vengeance" is pretty provocative, especially when followed by the burnt contents of a child's lunch box? Of course I've reviewed the material."
"LEO: A lab in the UK is going to let us know in 72 hours if the first US case of mad cow is in Nebraska right now. We got a presumptive positive on-"