Hiroshima Maidens Read online

  It so happened that a few weeks earlier Togasaki had met the general at a kabuki performance, so he felt comfortable calling Army Headquarters and asking for an appointment. But an aide answered whose job it was to screen all calls to the general, and he wanted to know the exact purpose of the request for a meeting. Afraid that if he were truthful he was taking a risk on being turned down out of hand by an underling, Togasaki said he wanted to invite the general to an upcoming banquet; knowing that was often the way social business was conducted in Japan, the aide scheduled him for ten o’clock the following morning.

  It was impossible to know what General Hull was thinking when he heard the background to the project. He gave no indication of whether he was for or against it, and even when he asked to be sent a copy of Norman Cousins’s letter, it seemed to Togasaki like a perfunctory way of ending the meeting. He was speechless then when, four days later, he received a communique from the general giving written confirmation that a U.S. military plane would be placed at the disposal of the responsible parties in charge of escorting the Maidens to America. Togasaki forwarded the letter immediately to Norman Cousins in New York.

  The project was materializing quickly, but Cousins knew that everything could be voided by the shake of a bureaucrat’s head, and the time had come to approach the American government. As everything being done was organized under the auspices of the American-based Hiroshima Peace Center Associates, he sent its treasurer, the Reverend Marvin Green, former classmate of the Reverend Tanimoto, to Washington, D.C., to meet with a group of high-echelon State Department officials, who made it known immediately that they were less than sanguine about the idea. Their objection was that treating these girls in America could give the appearance of admitting America’s culpability in dropping the atomic bomb. They argued that the girls’ presence would embarrass the United States and might well be turned into anti-American propaganda by communists.

  A hard line from the State Department had been anticipated, and a full complement of rebuttals polished. While admitting that the project involved certain risks, the Reverend Green said it was his group’s intention to show that Americans today were understanding of the problems facing other people in the world and that a person-to-person campaign to rehabilitate the innocent victims of war could only have a salutary effect. He pointed out that the disfigured Hiroshima girls held a special symbolic importance for the Japanese people, and to the extent that they could be given decent care and consideration, much of the sting of the anti-American propaganda generated by the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission’s hands-off policy could be removed. Indeed, he said, the girls they wished to bring to America would become symbols to the entire nation of Japan of American generosity and enduring friendship. And finally, he said that the State Department might as well know that the girls had already been approached by communist leaders, who wished to exploit their plight through international publicity. So far they had refused to cooperate, but it was his opinion that if his group was not allowed to do something soon for these poor girls, the Russians might get to them first.

  After two hours of tense, heated discussion, the Reverend Green succeeded in convincing the State Department that the Hiroshima Peace Center Associates would be sensitive to the potential for misinterpretation and distortion and would keep publicity limited and tasteful. In return, while not officially endorsing the project, the State Department agreed to give it implicit approval by not standing in the way, as long as it was not billed as an act of expiation or atonement for dropping the atomic bomb, or confused with a form of government restitution.

  Norman Cousins had succeeded in obtaining guarantees for transportation, hospitalization, surgery, and home care free of charge, but he knew that once the Maidens were in America the project would accrue substantial expenses. The Hiroshima Peace Center Associates, unfortunately, were not in a financial position to cover them. But confident that whatever act of fiscal serendipity was necessary to prop the project up would be there when it was needed, Cousins proceeded to plan as though the coffers were full, for in anything he had ever done, one way or another the money had always come. As it turned out, this project was no exception. About this time he chanced upon a newspaper account of a recent This Is Your Life television program that had featured a seventy-year-old Negro educator who had started a school for black children in a ramshackle sheep pen in the Mississippi back-woods, and how an appeal over the air for contributions to endow a larger facility had brought in close to $1,000,000. So he wrote the show’s host, Ralph Edwards, and suggested a tribute to the Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto, a man admired throughout the country by those who had read John Hersey’s bestseller, that would frame a similar fund-raising campaign on behalf of the A-bomb Maidens. Edwards, who liked to feature people who had distinguished themselves in admirable ways, found what Cousins had to say of great interest, and agreed to book the Reverend for his May eleventh show.

  Conceding that there were probably dozens of things he had not yet thought of, Norman Cousins put in a call to Drs. Barsky and Hitzig and told them the time had come to go to Hiroshima and select the girls who would be brought to America.

  *

  The news that an American medical team was coming to Japan to select a group of female atomic bomb survivors to be taken to the States for treatment was prematurely leaked to the Japanese press, so by the time the Americans assembled in Tokyo, they found themselves facing an army of reporters. No one could have anticipated the tremendous amount of interest and emotionalism their arrival generated, nor the difficult questions that were asked. This was a time when American hydrogen bomb testing in the South Pacific was dominating the news in Japan, and the press wanted to know if this was a secret ploy by the U.S. government to offset the negative publicity created by the irradiation of Japanese fishermen following a test explosion on the Bikini Atoll the previous year. If not, who was putting up the money? What were their reasons? Where was the catch? And what about the rumor that the project was only a facade for a circus group which planned to take the girls on a coast-to-coast exhibition tour of America at a fancy admission charge?

  So that the unfriendly speculation did not get out of hand, Norman Cousins decided it was best to open up and hold a press conference. Most of the questions were easily disposed of. As for the volatile question about motives, Cousins portrayed the project as an expression of traditional benevolence for disaster victims. The Japanese press was divided in its response. The answer apparently registered with the establishment papers, but the leftist press saw only ulterior motives and claimed to have confidential information that proved the Maidens would be studied, with the results benefitting the United States government so it could build more deadly “imperialist atomic weapons”.

  The question of motives was more involved for Norman Cousins, who felt a strong personal responsibility as a citizen of the nation that had been the first to use atomic weapons against other human beings, than for Dr. Barsky, who felt the use of the bomb was defensible as a military decision that had saved lives by shortening the war. Beyond that, Barsky had not given the subject much thought, and it played no significant part in his desire to participate in the project. It had been the convergence of the professional and the human aspects of the case that had prompted his involvement: He was fully aware of the fact that the advancement in modern surgical techniques was tied to the kinds of injuries sustained in successive wars, and initially he had been intrigued by the challenge presented by atomic burns. But he was also concerned for the innocent children caught in the crossfire of war who would carry their injuries for the rest of their lives.

  The situation that awaited the medical team in Hiroshima was extremely complex. Everyone was suspicious about what was going on. The public was puzzled; people found it incomprehensible that American doctors would come all the way to Hiroshima to help a small group of survivors for nothing. The local medical profession was ready to take offense because having citizens from its community treated by outs
iders made it appear that they were either incompetent or uncaring. Indeed, the very presence of foreign surgeons seemed like a slap at the Japanese medical profession in general. Perhaps the greatest hostility, however, came from the men at the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, because the emphasis of this new project highlighted the callousness of their program design.

  Although the project as originally conceived had been structured to accommodate girls who were members of the Reverend Tanimoto’s group, it was decided that the selection process should be opened to any young female disfigured or crippled in the bombing, and newspaper and radio announcements went out giving the time and place of the examinations. According to city officials there were hundreds of eligible women, but the rumor that they would be experimented upon apparently had a discouraging effect, for in all, forty-three women, ranging in age from their late teens to their late twenties, presented themselves for consideration.

  As the senior medical man on the project, Dr. Barsky did his best to avoid any discussion with his Japanese counterparts about the comparative levels of Japanese and U.S. medicine, and he solicited their opinions at every turn. His professional manner, which bespoke dignity and high competence, won him a certain degree of respect, but it was his shrewd handling of the eternally vigilant and infinitely demanding press that ultimately won over his Japanese colleagues. Just before the examinations were to begin at a local hospital, reporters insisted that they be allowed to watch in order to make sure that nothing “untoward” was going on. Out of courtesy, Barsky had invited several Japanese physicians to sit in, but he drew the line at allowing the press to observe his inspection of disrobed young females. In the interest of community relations, however, he welcomed them to listen to what was going on from the far side of a partition he erected out of sliding panel screens.

  To handle the large number of patients efficiently, Barsky divided them into two groups. While Dr. Hitzig administered a thorough physical exam to half the girls (checking for heart disease, tuberculosis, and disorders from any of the so-called atomic bomb disease syndromes), he inspected the injuries of the other half, and then they switched. What he saw were the late effects of severe thermal “flash burns.” Even though the heat had come from a radiation source, the injuries were identical to those that might have been inflicted on someone sitting in a gun turret when there was an explosion of a powder magazine. He found that most were burned in two places: the face and neck region, and the hands and arms. Reconstructing the moment of the blast in his mind, he saw them turned in the direction of the fireball by the sound of the plane overhead, and instinctively raising their hands to protect their eyes from the blinding light. Although most of the girls reported they had exhibited the symptoms of radiation sickness shortly afterward, Dr. Barsky could find no physical evidence of actual radiation injuries per se, which would have affected the function of tissue cells.

  When the examinations were completed and Drs. Barsky and Hitzig compared notes, they found that twenty-five of the forty-three candidates met the required guidelines. Reconstructive plastic surgery could significantly improve their appearances and disabilities, and they were deemed healthy enough to withstand the rigors of surgery. Since the project had been planned to accommodate twenty-two at the most, a decision had to be made whether to cut the list to the original figure or go ahead with twenty-five; at the last minute it was resolved that they would take everyone who was eligible.

  Notifications to this effect went out to General Hull, Mount Sinai Hospital, and the Quakers, and individual letters were sent to the entire group of forty-three girls. Those who were selected to make the trip were given instructions regarding passports and visas and final preparations; those left behind were given no promises, but it was made clear to them that the possibility of bringing treatment to them and to the thousands of others, men included, in Hiroshima who were reported to be deformed by keloids would be explored in the future.

  Dr. Barsky was grateful for the decision that had been made to enlarge the project to include two practicing Hiroshima surgeons who would accompany the girls to America in order to observe and learn American techniques of plastic surgery. When the idea was first proposed it had reminded him of the Chinese proverb, “Give a man a single fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him to fish and he will have food for a lifetime.” Even though the services of the Japanese physicians were not essential, he thought it would be good for the patients to have them around, and adding an educational dimension to the project would broaden the way people evaluated the results. After all the Japanese media attention, Barsky also found himself thinking it was a smart move from a diplomatic standpoint as well. The Japanese doctors could serve as witnesses for more than techniques; they would function as reliable reporters that nothing “untoward” was going on.

  There remained one other slot to be filled. The Maidens were going to be airlifted to a foreign country and admitted to a strange hospital for major surgery by men who could not speak their language. It was felt that a person was needed who could be with them when they were going into surgery, who would be there when they were about to be anesthetized and when they recovered, who would explain when things did not go according to plan or to expectations. Finding such a person had been on the agenda since the group arrived in Japan, but the search had been unproductive. They wanted a mature female, preferably someone who had raised children, who was familiar with medical procedures and terms, and, of course, who spoke both languages fluently. While in Tokyo they had interviewed a number of candidates, but few middle-aged Japanese women spoke English at that time, and the younger ones who presented themselves seemed too eager for the job, leaving the impression they were more interested in a free trip to the United States than anything else.

  Time was running out when another one of the coincidences that seemed to charm this project brought the perfect person onto the scene. One afternoon Norman Cousins went to the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission for the shots he had been in too much of a hurry to get before coming to Japan, and while there he talked to the head nurse about the difficulty they were having locating someone to assume the combined responsibilities of interpreter and chaperone. When he described the person he had in mind, she said that sounded like the woman whose desk he was leaning against.

  Turning around, Norman Cousins was introduced to Mrs. Helen Yokoyama, an aristocratic-looking woman born in America of Japanese ancestry, who was a graduate of UCLA in psychology and who had married a Japanese and moved to Japan before the war and lived there ever since. She was the mother of three children and the wife of a man who had lost most of his estate holdings in the postwar land reformation, which was why she had taken a job at the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission in Hiroshima, where her bilingual skills as well as her understanding of the different cultures had made her a valued employee. Whenever there were labor tensions between the American staff and Japanese hirelings, Helen Yokoyama’s office became the mediation room. Whenever the American doctors had to break bad news to a patient’s family, they would call in Helen Yokoyama, whom they trusted to translate a death sentence in a way that did not arouse resentment. She was still an American citizen and she considered America her home country, but she had come to love Japan too, and felt at one with its people. The satisfaction of acting as a bridge between the two countries was the main reason she stayed on at the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission and why, when Norman Cousins offered her a position in the Maidens Project, she did not say no.

  But she had not made up her mind to say yes either, nor fully discussed the matter with her husband, on whom the burden of taking care of the children would fall if she went, before a party was given at the Reverend Tanimoto’s church for the twenty-five chosen girls and she was asked to attend as interpreter. By the time she arrived there were twenty-four seated at a long table, and their suspicion of her was profound. The twenty-fifth girl was standing on the dark side of a pillar, half in shadow, her face partly hidden behind a gauze mask and her wh
ole countenance projecting a wounded-animal vulnerability. Their eyes met, and thinking suddenly about her own two, very lucky daughters, Helen Yokoyama knew now that she had no choice but to go.

  *

  It had been ten years since the world had seemed to come to an end for the A-bomb Maidens. They all thought the bomb that had destroyed their city and killed friends and family had robbed them of their futures. In her hit song, Michiko Sako wrote that people were different from flowers because blossoms might wither and die but would bloom again in the spring. Not so, the Maidens. Perhaps if the situation had not been so desperate at home they would not have had the courage to seek help from their former enemies. At the time, they had only one thought: They wanted to undo what had been done to them. Not to have gone to America would have meant they had abandoned all hope. They felt they had nothing to lose. Dr. Barsky had gone out of his way to impress upon them that plastic surgery would not be able to make their scars vanish without a trace, and they should not expect miracles. But for them the chance to go away and come back looking a little bit more normal was worth any risk.

  Besides, there was little time to sit down and reflect on their fate. From the time of their selection to their departure only two weeks elapsed. They were kept busy with dozens of practical preparations, and then the necessary travel procedures had to be handled.

  The day before they were to leave, the American Consul from Kobe, Ralph Blake, arrived in Hiroshima and opened a temporary branch office. Blake had been the first Foreign Service man to raise an eyebrow when he learned of the official clearance granted this project, for it sounded to him like a rash action with explosive foreign policy implications. He had cabled his concerns to his superiors at the State Department, questioning whether this was in keeping with “our worldwide efforts to deemphasize the destructive effects of nuclear weapons”. While his views were under consideration, however, he was following standing orders and cooperating fully. Indeed, with an eye toward the favorable comment the gesture was bound to bring forth for the Foreign Service, he had come to Hiroshima himself instead of requiring the group to come to his office in Kobe, and he had thoughtfully waived the requirement for photos on the Maidens’ passports.