The secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs
backtracked
on a department memo that
sought to prohibit the display
at the VA of the iconic
VJ Day in Times Square
photograph of a member of the Navy kissing a woman she didn't know on the streets of New York at the end of World War II.
Secretary
Denis McDonough
acted hours after a copy of a memo from a VA deputy assistant secretary calling for
the photo's removal from all VA health care facilities
was shared on social media .
The memo said the photo
"represents a non-consensual act"
and is inconsistent with the department's sexual harassment policy.
McDonough tweeted a copy of the image that appeared in Life magazine on Tuesday and added: "Let me be clear: this image is not prohibited on VA facilities - and we will keep it on the premises."
The image was published by Life magazine in 1945. Photo: AFP
Two people familiar with the memo confirmed it
was authentic
and said McDonough had never approved it and rescinded it once he was informed it had been sent.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.
"VA is not going to ban this photo,"
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday.
"I can definitely say that the memo was not sanctioned, and therefore it is not something we were aware of."
Copies of the memo
racked up millions of views on social media,
quickly becoming
a political lightning rod.
The photo "VJ Day in Times Square, New York, NY, 1945", at an exhibition in Rome.
Photo: AFP
The photo was taken
on August 14, 1945
, known as
VJ Day,
the day Japan surrendered to the United States, as people poured into the streets of New York from restaurants, bars and movie theaters, celebrating the news.
George Mendonsa saw Greta Friedman, spun her around and gave her a kiss
.
They didn't know each other.
The photo, by Alfred Eisenstaedt, is titled
VJ Day in Times Square
, but most people know it simply as "The Kiss."
Friedman stated to the Library of Congress in 2005 that "it was not a romantic event
. It was simply a thank God the war is over type event
."
And he added in an oral history of the photo: "It wasn't my choice to be kissed.
The guy just walked up and kissed me or grabbed me
."
Friedman died in 2016
at age 92
.
Mendonsa died in 2019 at the age of 95.