THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 25, 1995 TAG: 9503240014
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines
The next 20 adults to leave any cinema in South Hampton Roads could tell President Clinton a thing or two he and his political advisers apparently don't know:
One, which nations were America's best allies and which its worst enemies in World War II. Two, even 50 years of astonishing rapprochement later, those distinctions matter in this year's commemorations of that war's end.
People closer to the White House than Hampton Roads could apprise them of that fact, too. For instance, the historians who recently put together an exhibit for the Smithsonian Institution on the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That exhibit portrayed the United States as villain and Japan as innocent victim. That exhibit was pulled by the imperatives of historical accuracy and by popular demand.
Or, for another instance, the White House might pick up any number of last Saturday papers, including our own, and read ``The secrets of Unit 731,'' a compendium of atrocities committed by the Japanese Imperial Army.
Every nation has its sins of war, but some have more than others; and some, Japan among them, are more reluctant to own up.
Yet for fear of appearing to ``gloat'' - that's White House press secretary Mike McCurry's word - the Clinton administration has studiously avoided calling the commemoration of the Allies' victory over Japan by its historical if colloquial name: V-J Day.
Whether that day is officially Aug. 15, 1945, when Japan announced its surrender, or Sept. 2, 1945, when formal papers were signed, victory over Japan is what it was, and ``V-J Day'' is what the millions of Americans and others who brought it about deserve to have the president of the United States call it. Particularly those whom Japan killed at Pearl Harbor deserve a remembrance that doesn't shy, as President Clinton's plans now do, from having Japan's current leader face Japan's former adversaries there.
And what point, or points, does Mr. Clinton hope to make by snubbing the Victory in Europe celebrations in Britain, whom America has long done more allying with than fighting against, in favor of Russia's? He only revives his per-son-al history, usually revived by his political foes, of visiting Moscow as a college student while his peers flew to Vietnam.
Politics permeates all these days, but the purpose of V-E Day and V-J Day commemorations is not to shore up Prime Minister Murayama by taking the spotlight off Japan's aggression in the Pacific or to shore up President Yeltsin by drawing the spotlight to him.
To celebrate the outcome of World War II with all grace and credit due Americans who fought and allies who fought with them is hardly to ``gloat.'' It shouldn't take talk-radio to tell Bill Clinton so. by CNB