I received a personal email from Mr. Pellegrino of Last Train from Hiroshima. He added more plausible explanations of what happened to the “hoax” of Last Train from Hiroshima. It is my understanding that Mr. Pellegrino may have been a victim of an unfair accusation rather than the perpetrator of a hoax. He has given me permission to post his email. See below: In the meantime, this is my reply to Mr. Pelligrino:
Dear Mr. Pellegrino,
You have a Japanese soul that lives by retaining dignity through silence. On my desk, I have a saying, “You can’t quote silence.” I write this with deep emotion that you are able to live on “interesting” and ” madness” without needing to blast the media and other people involved, who could set the story closer to the truth. I now question if silence is always good.
I’m ecstatic over your responses and wanted to hear that the story of the victims and survivors was authentic because I wanted so much to believe, that the story of my ancestors was real. Thank you, most sincerely, for giving me this legacy through your book.
Now, what can I do to help undo bad media press and let silence be heard?
frances kakugawa
Dear Frances Kakugawa: A friend just directed me last night to your open letter of nearly a month ago – to which I have just responded on your site.
Please be assured that I have learned more than most people that we must keep a faith with the dead, and this includes never being so arrogant (as one of my archaeologist-teachers once said) to believe that our job makes us “speakers for the dead.”
My job is to get as close as humanly possible to the truth.
When I saw the evidence that one of the aviators had given me an account that turned out to be untrue, I wanted nothing more than to see the book withdrawn and to quickly put out a corrected edition. I argued that technology had the answer and (as Tsutomu Yamaguchi and Masahiro Sasaki would have me do) suggested that my publisher try to build a bridge to its declared enemy, Amazon-Kindle. “We could get a corrected copy out in weeks,” I said cheerily. This went over about half as well as a hand-grenade in a cesspool.
Amid such contention, an anti-evolutionist 9/11 conspiracy theorist named Brennan got to my publisher through the Associated Press with what was essentially a hoax about my having a “phony” Ph.D. I provided the publisher with a (requested) copy of my published Ph.D. Dissertation (having been told that such copy should end the argument).
Meanwhile, the 509th bomber wing (and its descendant family members) started making unreasonable assertions and demands – such as removing or diminishing Charles Sweeney in the next edition (a man who went out of his way to avoid bombing a largely civilian target and who, after Hiroshima, said he needed to go see a priest after being told he was going to have to do this again). By and large, the 509th hate anyone who expressed remorse over the bombings – so (having quickly had a belly full of the 509th) I told my publisher I was now adding Robert Lewis to the new edition (the co-pilot who looked down upon Hiroshima and said, “My God, what have we done?”). I was told that I should not make matters worse because we “need the 509th on our side… we need this dispute to simply go away – quickly” (Steve Rubin, Holt). Very close to the final straw for me had been a claim by the 509th bomber wing that I did not know anything about nuclear physics, that
the bombs were designed to dissipate all radiation at high altitude before it could reach the ground, and that my writings about radiation effects on the ground in Hiroshima were a hoax. The publisher demanded proof of radiation. I presented an extensive list of scientific papers (including our own U.S. Bombing Survey data).
Oddly, the answer to these papers and to the copy of my Ph.D. Dissertation were the same: “This is all too scientific.” I pointed out that we were in New York City and that we had the American Museum of Natural History (where Niles Eldredge was a supporter of my Ph.D Dissertation) and Columbia University, all within a quick subway ride. We also had Jim Powell (of Brookhaven National Laboratory), a polymath who was familiar with my history and who could answer to both issues. (They never bothered to call Powell, or to check with anyone at AMNH or Columbia.)
But… we needed the 509th on our side. And so, my agent pointed out, “You will never get them on our side. This is an anti-war book.”
Madness. Madness. It was like the old Chinese curse that at first glance is meant to look like a blessing: “May you live in interesting times.” This has been a month far too interesting.
- – Charles Pellegrino
Note to Readers: Mr. Pellegrino’s initial response is found under my Open Letter to Mr. Pellegrino under comments.
Though dissimilar in their nature, one can’t help but be reminded of that other case of hyper-authenticity, “The Araki Yasusada Hoax” which caused some pimpling on the face of academic poetry. Mr. Yasusada, was also a presumed survivor of Hiroshima whose work (a notable collection of poems) was discovered by his son after Mr. Yasusada’s death. The works were celibrified in academic and publishing circles until, alas, it was discovered that Mr. Yasusada never existed. The presumed hoaxer, Kent Johnson, has yet to own his part in the matter. Of course the similarity ends there. It was not a character or event in the work that raised hackles, it was the falsification of the author of an otherwise credible rendering that did the deed. Nevertheless, such are occasions for uproar – especially in slack gossip times – and woe the poor ink-jockey who gets trampled by his own horse.
Let us, for the sake of argument, take Mr. Pellegrino’s defense at face value and regard it as completely accurate in all of its particulars. The question Ms. Kakugawa asks, remains “What can I do to undo bad media press and let silence be heard?”
To begin with, we will also assume the ‘silence’ she refers to was for the reasons she presumes it was. As well, the ‘bad media press” was unwarranted and inauthentic. In that case, there is probably little or nothing to be done. In matters of the press, ‘undoing’ would be the equivalent of ‘unringing’; the bell has been struck and no amount of discovery or retraction will change that. Besides, our news media is now almost entirely given over to the corporate definition of ‘authenticity’ and has little to do with the tone that was sounded, but the bottom line that was struck. If it has the timbre of $s, then it is, in corporate terms, “authentic”.
One would hope, should matters be as Mr. Pellegrino’s states, that he will have and avail himself of legal remedies to at least re-establish his own reputation and be remunerated for some of the damage that has been done. Beyond that, there is one other victim in this affair that deserves redress. Clearly, it matters to the readers of “Last Train from Hiroshima” (at least some of them) that all the particulars, or at least those in question, be accurate and faithful to the historical record. Mr. Pellegrino does not seem to have complaint about this demand, or otherwise suggest his work was intentionally a mixture of fictionalized and actual historical events. So, the reader must be given their due.
The only way to do that is to have the work and all the relevant details Mr. Pellegrino has offered examined by an independent, credible and peer-reviewed historian who can set the record straight and inform the reading public what part of the account they may rely upon and what part not. I see no way around that inconvenience (and trust that, ultimately, its cost will be born by those who caused the mischief in the first place).
Finally, though his account be completely accurate, his facts reasonably verified and all else put in order, there is one part of the matter which Mr. Pellegrino must own (and I’ve no reason to believe he won’t). That is, his capitulation to the insistence of his Agent and publisher that they needed to get the 509th “on our side.” As a writer, I know how difficult it is to resist such pressure. But it is still our job to do so in cases where we are being asked to alter work in ways that either obscures what we are claiming to be an accurate portrayal or falsify it in some other way. We simply cannot say, “Yes” to that, even if it means a work will stay in the desk drawer. It is not a matter of stubborn pride confronting real-world practicalities. And, if it is merely a matter of style or length or some artful device, then we may grovel like anyone else. But where the veracity of the text itself hangs in the balance, it becomes matter of defending the art, the craft itself, and its authenticity. It is a concern no longer confined to a single work or a single author; but to all authors and all works. In that, writers are responsible to each other, as much as to their subjects or themselves.
I would expect, in retrospect, Mr. Pellegrino wouldn’t have made any such bargain, for the sake of his publisher, or his agent or the 509th or 330th or 62nd or anyone else who might want a flattering ‘touch-up’. Next time, Mr. Pellegrino, we suggest you find another publisher, get another agent, address another readership or, just put the mss back in the drawer until one of the three has matured enough to welcome the unvarnished truth. – red slider
[...] We have exchanged emails, and I have posted a full account of our exchange in my post today, “Email from Charles Pellegrino.” [...]
I would buy this book. Too bad for the aviator who did not tell the truth.One section of bad information will not turn an entire book into a hoax.