The U.S. Veterans Affairs secretary has reversed a department memo that aimed to ban VA displays of the iconic 鈥淰-J Day in Times Square鈥� photograph of a Navy sailor kissing a woman he did not know on the streets of New York at the end of World War II.
Secretary acted hours after a copy of a memo from a VA assistant undersecretary requesting the photo鈥檚 removal from all VA health facilities was shared on social media. The memo had said the photo 鈥渄epicts a non-consensual act鈥� and is inconsistent with the department鈥檚 sexual harassment policy.
McDonough on Tuesday tweeted out a copy of the image, which appeared in Life magazine, adding, 鈥淟et me be clear: This image is not banned from VA facilities 鈥� and we will keep it in VA facilities.鈥�
Two people familiar with the memo confirmed that it was authentic and said McDonough had never approved it and rescinded it once informed that it had been sent out. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.
鈥淭he VA is not going to be banning this photo,鈥� White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday. 鈥淚 can definitely say that the memo was not sanctioned, and so it鈥檚 not something that we were even aware of.鈥�
Copies of the memo racked up millions of views on social media, quickly becoming a political lightning rod.
The photo was taken on Aug. 14, 1945, known as V-J Day, the day Japan surrendered to the United States, as people spilled into the New York City streets from restaurants, bars and movie theaters, celebrating the news. George Mendonsa spotted Greta Friedman, spun her around and planted a kiss. The two had never met.
The photo, by Alfred Eisenstaedt, is called 鈥淰-J Day in Times Square鈥� but is known to most people simply as 鈥淭he Kiss.鈥�
Friedman told the Library of Congress in 2005 that 鈥渋t wasn鈥檛 a romantic event. It was just an event of thank God the war is over kind of thing.鈥� She added in an oral history of the photo: 鈥淚t wasn鈥檛 my choice to be kissed. The guy just came over and kissed or grabbed.鈥�
in 2016 at age 92. in 2019 at age 95.
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