The Air and Space Museum is falling

THE SMITHSONIAN Institution, our national museum and also a scientific research complex, is at a crisis point. Many of its 20 venues, such as the National Museum of Natural History and the National Air and Space Museum, need tens of millions of dollars in work. Desperate for funds, the Smithsonian has made arguably improper arrangements with big business, and it has accepted funding from corporations with an all-too-obvious interest in what goes on view in the institution's museums. But the real crisis is this: Congress seems to have barely noticed.

How bad is the situation? Last year, the Government Accountability Office, a bureaucracy not given to hyperbole, found "major structural deterioration" in Smithsonian buildings and "chronic leaks." At least two historic aircraft at the Air and Space Museum have been water-damaged. Several buildings are rife with mold. Water has flowed into at least four museums, well before last month's rains.

The Smithsonian recently reopened its American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery after a $283-million renovation. That's a good start, but nearly every other Smithsonian museum requires some level of attention. According to the GAO, the Smithsonian will need at least $2.3 billion for building costs, anti-terrorism protection and scheduled and deferred maintenance by 2013. The problems extend beyond capital improvements to the day-to-day as well: In an attempt to lower energy costs, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden recently restricted hot-water use in its building.

The budget pressures have apparently weakened the Smithsonian's ethical foundations too. The Smithsonian's leaders and their congressional overseers are allowing too much of our national museum to be transformed into a series of pavilions where, in exchange for sponsorship money and other deals, corporations may determine what parts of the American story should be told.

Two recent examples are particularly egregious: The Smithsonian sold to CBS Corp.'s Showtime network what amounts to the right of first refusal for all documentaries dependent on Smithsonian archives or staff time. Independent historians and filmmakers howled. Congress held a hearing, threw a public tantrum, but then effectively shrugged. The deal remains intact.

One of the problems with corporate involvement is the appearance of influence in exhibition programming. Recently the National Museum of American History removed the pioneering EV1 electric car from an exhibit. Perhaps not surprisingly, the museum's new transportation wing is being sponsored by General Motors, the same GM that has been excoriated for discontinuing the EV1 despite consumer demand for the car. ...