LIFE’s 1980 invitation to the kissing sailor, perhaps originally heartfelt, ultimately morphed into a humiliating affair. Former World War II sailors who accepted LIFE’s invite as a personal summons expected a crowning. Instead, LIFE hosted a carnival and tossed the expectant would-be kissing sailors onto a carousel. Movement substituted for progress. The passengers got nowhere. As the ride went round and round, an amusement park atmosphere took hold, complete with rigged games, questionable salesmanship, and smoke and mirrors. The carnival ran for years.
In 1992 Alfred Eisenstaedt referenced LIFE’s 1980 invitation to the sailors as a “mistake.”1 His conclusion probably reflected the chaos that followed when eighty sailors (according to Eisenstaedt) answered LIFE’s call. Undoubtedly calmer seas would have prevailed if LIFE never churned up the waters over the issue of their kissing sailor’s identity.
But LIFE’s invitation did stir up the waters, and George Mendonsa, who fished daily on Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay, responded immediately. His letter arrived at LIFE with a wave of other persuasive statements from many former sailors who for years just knew they were the kissing sailor. LIFE filed George’s response promptly with about a dozen other sailors. More sailors’ claims followed later.
Rather than separate the most credible assertions from the farfetched, LIFE heaped all the sailors from different ships into the same hull. Although each sailor had provided personal and unique substantiations of their claim, LIFE followed with a blurb clearly intended to be generic and noncommittal:
Thus it was that memories stirred old seafaring hearts across the land, moments of danger and tossing sea and those too-brief winsome moments ashore. Then, most vividly, that unforgettable day—August 15, 19452—when any swabbie worth his bell-bottoms kissed any girl within reach. No fewer than 10 sailors as well as two more nurses have managed to recall the last detail how it happened and how they happened to be in Times Square—persuading us that all their stories are true. But who is in the picture? And who kissed whom? Truth be told, only Eisie ever knew the answer. But since his notes vanished, he cannot make a final choice. It leaves us to wonder if, in some almost supernatural way, through the magic of his photographic artistry he didn’t manage to get a picture of all of them. To be continued.3
As it turned out, LIFE’s promise of “to be continued” proved limited. And, of course, sailors knew well that Eisenstaedt photographed only one of them—not all of them—on August 14, 1945. Each sailor had accepted LIFE’s August 1980 invitation as a sincere inquiry to determine the sailor’s identity in the V-J Day, 1945, Times Square photo. Instead of resolving to do just that, LIFE left readers from across the country to decide for themselves who the kissing sailor might be. LIFE gave them little with which to make an informed decision. Their October 1980 issue offered only snippets from the sailors’ original letters. George’s printed excerpt was less persuasive than those selected for his rivals.
While the printed piece did not promote George’s case very well, someone thought enough of his story to call him and request that Peter Kunhardt, son of LIFE’s managing editor Philip Kunhardt, conduct an interview with him. When George agreed, the news show 20/20 sent a crew to Rhode Island to meet George at his house in Middletown, and at his second home, Maria Mendonsa, floating in Newport Harbor. Shortly afterward, 20/20 invited George to New York to meet Greta Friedman (Greta Zimmer in 1945), one of three women claiming to be the other participant in Eisenstaedt’s famous Times Square picture. In New York, George was instructed to get out of a limousine in Times Square and walk over to Greta, who stood at the approximate spot that the original kiss transpired thirty-five years earlier. The 20/20 handlers told George to walk over to Greta and reintroduce himself. At that point, they informed George, they would start filming.
The reenactment proved contrived and awkward. As George recalls, “I approached Greta, grabbed her hand and said something like, ‘I’m finally glad to meet you after all these years.’” Then he kissed her “because that was what they expected me to do.” Alfred Eisenstaedt witnessed the reunion. Again, he took pictures. For this shoot, he angled his camera to catch the marquee on the Times Building, which read, “It had to be you.” While the message rang true, those in a position to validate the words did not heed the boldly lit statement.
George thought all the hoopla with 20/20 acknowledged his part in Eisenstaedt’s most famous photograph. It did not. In actuality, the aired 20/20 piece did nothing to separate Mendonsa’s claim from other would be V-J Day Time Square kissing sailors. In fact, editors gave other claimants more time during the fifteen-minute segment than they allotted George. 20/20’s longest treatment of Mendonsa (there were only two brief clips about George) discussed the chevron he claimed to be hanging from his right pocket in the 1945 photo. In that piece George offered: “And the way I tucked it in my right hip pocket I’d say I must have had a quite a few drinks in me because it was luck I didn’t tuck it away good—the way it should have been tucked away.”
Hugh Downs dismissed any persuasive value that Mendonsa’s segment might have had (and certainly little existed) by following up the clip with, “A more obvious clue is the hair.” Downs transitioned to other sailors whose hairlines he compared to Eisenstaedt’s kissing sailor. Mendonsa did not appear in the piece. The program implied that Mendonsa’s hairline followed a different contour than that of Eisenstaedt’s kissing sailor. But Mendonsa’s 1945 hairline traveled the exact path of the kissing sailor’s. Unfortunately viewers remained ignorant of that fact. Removing Mendonsa further still from serious consideration, Downs ended the show in a noncommittal fashion: “Now there may be conscious imposters in this group, but I think several of these nurses and sailors really believe they were in that picture. Who do you think is the real one?”
For a viewer to make an informed decision they needed to hear more from the sailors and nurses. The 20/20 snippets reduced the determination to a guessing game. The last prospective kissing sailor to speak on the program went right along with the show’s apparent resolved position: “So maybe we will never know, but maybe that is just as well. Keep these two people symbolic of a fantastic day when a long war ended.” The real kissing sailor could never agree to that.
Alfred Eisenstaedt’s exact thoughts regarding these developments remain unclear. He did attend festivities put on by 20/20 to celebrate (or at least observe) both George and Greta. Also, Greta Friedman remembers Eisenstaedt approaching her after the filming to say, “I’m sorry,” in an apparent reference to all the attention lavished on Edith Shain. On that same day he took numerous pictures of George and Greta together. However, despite all the attention Eisenstaedt focused on this occasion, he never issued a public statement affirming George’s or Greta’s part in the famous kiss. Consequently, almost everyone continued to believe Edith Shain was the nurse Eisenstaedt photographed in V-J Day, 1945, Times Square.
From October 1980 onward LIFE’s communications were more in tone than Eisenstaedt’s. LIFE expressed no interest in recognizing George or Greta in their iconic photograph. If fact, just the opposite seems true. Over the following years LIFE expended great effort disregarding Mendonsa’s claim to be the 1945 V-J Day kissing sailor. Whether the new posture resulted from apathy, disdain, or incompetence, in the fall of 1980 the transformation came on abruptly, and upsettingly so, at least from George’s vantage point.
But just in case George wasn’t already clear as to LIFE’s thinking regarding his claim to the kissing sailor’s identity, the magazine’s executives clarified matters when he visited the Time-Life Building at Rockefeller Center in the early 1980s. George had hoped to speak with the magazine’s editors and managers about his claim. At first, one LIFE employee led him to hope for a positive reception. On the elevator ride up to the LIFE offices, the female escort said to him, “I know you’re the kissing sailor.” Others in the Time-Life Building thought so, too. On George’s way to the managing editor’s office, another female employee noticed him and yelled across the room, “Look! Didn’t I tell you about those earlobes? He’s the guy. Look at his nose and his hairline. He’s the one.”4
While these affirmations lifted the old sailor’s spirits, his soaring pride crash-landed in LIFE’s lobby soon afterward. LIFE’s top brass refused to meet with the former sailor. Instead, he talked with Ann Morrell, a LIFE magazine secretary. After Morrell informed George that there would be no discussion with LIFE executives, he raised his voice, declared that he had had enough, and turned to leave the premises. Morrell encouraged him to stay. She said several people in the Time-Life Building had gathered to greet him. When George met with the congregated group, they all expressed a fascination with the whole ordeal and an interest in his version of events. Someone asked him if he kissed Edith Shain on August 14, 1945. George blurted, “No. She’s too short.” LIFE employees’ interest in George’s rendering of events contrasted starkly with that of their employer’s cold shoulder. However, their thinking never made it to press. Any lingering hope of recognition that might have survived within George after the LIFE office visit soon evaporated. LIFE never again invited George to a function associated with their famous photograph.
One indirect communication from LIFE did make its way to George in 1981. That communiqué, written by 20/20’s Peter Kunhardt, imparted a more congenial tone than that conveyed earlier by the magazine’s executives. In a handwritten letter, Philip Kunhardt’s son explained LIFE’s reasoning for not pursuing the story of the kissing sailor’s identity any longer:
I was finally able to have a good long talk with my father about the possibility of looking at new evidence in the VJ Day Sailor story. I showed him your photo and we were both impressed. But he says that LIFE is not going to go back and open up the story again. It’s not a matter of a cover-up, or anything of that kind, but simply a matter of public interest. The story ran 2 x already and LIFE feels that’s plenty. Needless to say, ABC doesn’t plan to run it again either. If by chance they select the V-J Story to run as a re-run this summer, I’ll let you know and maybe we can add some new information then.
Peter Kunhardt finished the handwritten letter by telling George he still planned on coming up to Newport to go out on the fishing boat with him—if that was “still OK.” George made good on the promise.
LIFE would have done well to have Peter Kunhardt handle all their communications with George. They did not. In one brush-off, LIFE’s aggravation with George became clear. Once again, secretary Ann Morrell fulfilled the role as communications expert. In a typed letter dated January 15, 1987, Morrell lectured George:
Dear George:
Yes, I’m still here. I’m still hearing from a few sailors, and I’m sorry to report that our position remains the same. We cannot positively identify the sailor—or the nurse.
Since a large part of 1986 was devoted to LIFE’s 50th Anniversary and looking back, we are now concentrating on looking forward. Our managing editor is not interested in pursuing the subject further.
As for your quote in YANKEE, “Some lawyer has probably scared them that I want royalties.” George, even if you were the sailor in the photograph, you would not be entitled to royalties. Royalties are not paid to subjects in news photos. The photograph belongs to Alfred Eisenstaedt, and he is the only one who gets paid when it is reproduced. So believe me there would be no reason to be afraid to identify the sailor if we could. But as I said before, at this point we are not interested. We’ve all had some fun with it. Why not just leave it at that.
Best wishes, Ann Morrell
What Morrell termed as “fun” did not equate with George’s experiences. Though LIFE wanted the matter ended, George was married to the cause. He took his vows most seriously.
Several factors might account for LIFE’s dramatic transformation from a search party looking for the kissing sailor to a retreating force firing rounds at George Mendonsa. Perhaps LIFE feared a potentially expensive payroll recipient. George assured LIFE that monetary considerations played no part in his quest. Maybe LIFE didn’t trust the former sailor’s word—especially after the 1987 lawsuit. And after all, a lucrative bonus check from the photo’s royalties might go a long way to speeding up an aging fisherman’s retirement from choppy waters, cutting winds, and tangled nets.
But money matters aside, George Mendonsa’s version of events probably would have earned a more receptive reaction from LIFE if it were not for, well, George. Conceivably, Mendonsa’s conviction on matters of recognition could be interpreted as shrill. Compare Edith Shain’s polite and demure letter to gain Eisenstaedt’s attention with George Mendonsa’s assertive lobbying for recognition. As a sole petitioner, Shain gingerly requested acknowledgment. A “delighted” Eisenstaedt got to play the discoverer of his lost nurse. In stark contrast, Mendonsa had to be picked from a stampede of charging sailors. And Mendonsa, the bucking seahorse, could not accept anything short of absolute identification.
Executives at LIFE found George difficult to work with.5 His expectations of the magazine were too great. He wanted things on his terms and made demands without a hint of humility. He came across as rough and rude. His phone messages were gruff and accusatory in tone. From LIFE’s standpoint, whether or not George was truly the kissing sailor, he was impossible to take. In a sense, George may have shot himself in the foot.
No matter what George did or should have done, and regardless of why LIFE abandoned the hunt for their kissing sailor, one thing remained certain: without the magazine’s cooperation George could not gain the recognition he sought. As he already knew, but would be tutored forever more, LIFE had no limits of will or resources to combat the Rhode Island fisherman’s every move.
Though LIFE’s rejection of George wore on him, the former sailor persisted in his efforts to gain recognition as the kissing sailor. Over the coming years George continued to try and make some sort of contact with the publication giant. He made any number of attempts to do this. But he received an equal number of rejections or snubs. Most of the time LIFE never responded to George’s inquiries. One such appeal and rejection occurred in 1987. During that year LIFE published a special issue with the V-J Day, 1945, Times Square photo on the cover. LIFE’s special issue included a story on Vice President George Bush and Barbara Bush. The image of the couple and their grandchildren inspired George to send an autographed copy of the magazine to Barbara Bush and also to LIFE. George told both parties that they should save the offering because they would possess one of only two autographed copies by the sailor in the photo. George thought the two parties might talk and renew LIFE’s interest in determining the kissing sailor’s identity. His judgment missed the mark on both accounts. There is no evidence that Barbara Bush talked to LIFE, but she did send George a cordial thank-you note. LIFE never even acknowledged receipt of George’s letter and offering.
Over the years, George’s efforts to gain recognition had long-distance company. While competitors for the kissing sailor rarely communicated directly, occasionally one candidate had to answer to another’s successful invasion of his turf. Predictably, the resulting commentary came across as something short of supportive. When MERL’s 2004 findings gained some attention in Florida where Carl Muscarello lived, the retired former New York detective commented, “My understanding is that the laboratory findings are not conclusive.”6 While arguably not conclusive, one would think that even Muscarello would have to allow for convincing. He did not.
Though Carl Muscarello and George Mendonsa never met, in 1995 they did exchange letters. George made the first contact. The publicity surrounding Muscarello’s claims to the kissing sailor motivated him to do so. The one-page note fell far short of congratulatory. Mendonsa’s correspondence to Muscarello read more like a résumé than the beginning of a dialogue between two former sailors. George dropped the names Peter Kunhardt and Professor Richard Benson and referenced all the evidence that proved he, not Muscarello, is the kissing sailor in V-J Day, 1945, Times Square.
Less than a month later, Muscarello wrote a letter in response. The wording flowed with vintage Muscarello politeness, congeniality, and reverence. Muscarello assured George, “I have the utmost respect for you as a fellow World War Two veteran.” He continued in the letter with offerings like, “It has never been my intention at any time to begrudge you or anyone else for their belief that they are the sailor or nurse,” and “I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to donate to charity any small amount of monies I have made from this event.” Niceties aside, Muscarello also scored his counterpoints, no doubt designed to trump George’s earlier brag sheet: “I believe like you and many others that I am the sailor in the photo. I base this belief on personal recollections and conversations I’ve had with Edith Shain. Ms. Shain was identified by Eisenstaedt and a subsequent Life magazine article to be the nurse in the photo and fifteen years later she identified me. There are things that happened that day that only Edith and I can know about.”
Muscarello finished his letter in the same tone he began with: “I have been fortunate in that most of the happiness in my life has come from my children, their children, my family and friends and my belief in God. I hope that you’ve experienced the same happiness.” Muscarello and Mendonsa never communicated directly with one another again.
From 1985 to 2005, as former sailors battled one another’s claims for the kissing sailor title, Edith Shain had an easy time safeguarding her claim as Eisenstaedt’s kissed nurse. Her competitors were in short supply, and lacked a substantial following. Further, her most formidable contender, Greta Friedman, did not seek the limelight. Friedman ranked so far behind the widely recognized front-runner that Shain rarely had to acknowledge her.
Even though evidence of Greta’s part in LIFE’s most famous photograph exceeded that supporting Edith Shain, she never stood a chance of unseating the peppy former nurse. For one, Greta’s campaign for the nurse’s part in V-J Day, 1945, Times Square ran on a shoestring budget. The entire operation consisted of paper, envelopes, and postage stamps. Rather than releasing statements and making presentations, she employed a promotional strategy that focused solely on responding succinctly to queries. To satisfy inquiring reporters about her claimed part in the kissing sailor photo, Greta sent along a one-page, double-spaced, reproduced letter. Her response put forth limited proof, no visuals, and a passive tone. The offering did little to entice further interest. Most follow-up appeals for information met with Greta’s reluctance to share any thoughts beyond that which she described in the earlier correspondence. Greta saw those who persisted in their appeals for further details as invaders of her privacy. On the few occasions she relented to pressure, she did so with considerable trepidation and in a guarded manner.
George Mendonsa once said of Greta’s efforts to be recognized in the famous photo, “Well, Greta doesn’t really care too much about all this.” That is not entirely true. While not a publicity hound, when provoked, Greta speaks with adamant conviction of her part in Eisenstaedt’s most well-known photo. Her backbone is steelier than Eisenstaedt’s photo of a backward-leaning nurse might suggest.
Greta’s tenacity rose to the surface when LIFE magazine first declared Edith Shain the nurse in the V-J Day, 1945, Times Square photograph. “I immediately protested it,” she offered in a very self-assured, forthright, and slightly annoyed tone. Later, even when a source reported her part in the famous picture, she corrected details, specified matters, and otherwise set the record straight. In a letter written in 1991 she scolded Bryant Gumbel with the following reprimand: “During the last part of the VJ sailor-nurse ‘reunion’ on Times Square, George Mendonza [sic] and I were directed by you to pretend that we were meeting for the first time since 1945. I don’t want to go along with that and misrepresent my experience. I never said that I had not seen George since 1945. As you know, we met again in 1980 for the 20/20 Show and in 1985 for the Today Show.”7
When Gumbel later changed his mind on the identity of the kissing sailor and nurse, Greta shot off a letter that demonstrated her spine’s tautness:
Dear Mr. Gumbel:
We were amazed when viewing the Today Show from Los Angeles on August 9 when you named Mrs. Edith Shane [sic] and Mr. Carl Muscarello as the kissing people in Alfred Eisenstaedt’s VJ Day photograph.
Ten years ago Mr. George Mendonza [Mendonsa] and I were on the Today Show in person and were interviewed by you.
We are the actual people in the picture.
Mr. Mendonza had the photograph analyzed by an expert who concluded that the sailor is indeed Mr. Mendonza. In the background of the picture and over the sailor’s shoulder is the woman who shortly thereafter became Mr. Mendonsa’s wife.
I am enclosing a copy of page 72 from the October 1980 issue of Life magazine so that you can see that I was the only one with the same hairdo as in the VJ photo. I also remember the little purse which I am holding in my right hand.
I hope this settles the matter.
While Friedman wrote an additional two letters, Gumbel never replied to any of them. Indicative of Greta’s modus operandi, she did not forward nor mention any of the letters during the interviews in preparation of this book. George Mendonsa passed along all four notes.
In one out-of-character instance during 2010, Greta Friedman inquired as to what “we” were going to do about all the attention being afforded Edith Shain after her passing. After a short discussion she agreed the we should let everything take its course, give everyone time to grieve over Edith’s passing, and otherwise lay low for the time being. She never brought up the matter again.
Greta did not get drawn into LIFE’s carnival. And thankfully, during the carnival’s thirty-two-year run there were other reprieves from the absurd. One respite originated from Guido Knopp, a highly respected history professor from Germany. In a documentary that considered all the evidence supporting George Mendonsa’s candidacy as the kissing sailor, the professor was certain: “We have the right guy.” Knopp did not suffer the loneliness of sole opinion. Patricia Redmond interviewed both Glenn McDuffie and George Mendonsa for the Library of Congress. She determined Mendonsa, not McDuffie, to be the kissing sailor. (She also believes Greta Freidman, not Edith Shain, is the embraced dental assistant.) Occasionally an expert opinion added emphasis to previous findings. In an interview with a television news show host, Dr. Richard Benson of Yale University augmented his 1987 report that affirmed George Mendonsa’s claims: “I am just completely convinced. I haven’t had any doubt about it since I’ve looked at the pictures. I really haven’t had any doubt about it at all.” To this, The Crusaders’ narrator added, “Nor did we.” Forensic anthropologist Dr. Norman Sauer and the material produced by MERL scientist Hanspeter Pfister, PhD, reinforced the other credentialed judgments. If only a mountain of qualified opinions and validated evidence could convince LIFE to recognize their kissing sailor. But then the carnival would be over.
During the years that LIFE sidestepped the issue of their kissing sailor’s identity, different works explored the origins of other famous photos. James Bradley’s Flags of Our Fathers was, arguably, the most noteworthy project of this sort. Published in 2000, his work about Joe Rosenthal’s image of the Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima quickly climbed the national bestseller list. Bradley confronted a carousel of opinions encircling photography’s most reproduced image. While he did not have to concern himself with the flag raisers’ identities (one of them—Dr. John Henry Bradley—is the author’s father), Bradley did contend with readers’ prior misconceptions. Some people knew that the photographer staged the whole scene. Others thought that the raising of the flag immediately followed a harrowing battle to take Mount Suribachi. Still others were sure the raising marked the end of the fight to take Iwo Jima. None of these accounts proved accurate. For the benefit of history, Bradley’s scholarship shared the true story of those heroic men raising the flag at Iwo Jima.
During the same general time frame of Bradley’s book, another image, that of a young Afghanistan woman from a June 1985 National Geographic cover, gained much attention. Like the kissing sailor, the Afghan girl remained nameless. However, unlike LIFE’s withdrawal from the effort to recognize their kissing sailor, National Geographic supported efforts to locate their Afghan girl seventeen years later. The undertaking presented challenges. Undaunted, photographer Steve McCurry traveled halfway around the world, employed interpreters, and utilized some of the world’s most sophisticated technology to find the subject of his 1985 photo. The Afghan girl, Sharbat Gula, adorned the June 2002 National Geographic cover. The title read proudly, FOUND, After 17 Years An Afghan Refugee’s Story. Writer Cathy Newman shared Gula’s journey from childhood in a Pakistan refugee camp to motherhood in Afghanistan after the Soviet Union’s withdrawal. The mystery ended. A curious public learned Gula’s amazing story.
If executives at LIFE read Bradley’s or Newman’s treatments, they missed the authors’ messages. A compassionate and responsible retrospective look at LIFE’s prized photograph did not follow suit. In the face of such disappointment, others continued to appeal to LIFE’s journalistic integrity, appreciation of history, and human compassion.
Around the time that Glenn McDuffie’s claim to the kissing sailor’s identity gained significant public attention, Jerry O’Donnell, a retired Navy captain and head of the VJ Day Sailor Project, organized a packet of updated evidence to support George Mendonsa’s claim to the kissing sailor’s identity. The proof included a review of Professor Benson’s findings, the MERL laboratory scientists’ procedures and conclusions, and recent photograph enhancements. O’Donnell sent the prepared packet to LIFE for their review and reply. His accompanying letter, cordial in tone, called attention to the urgency of the matter at hand. O’Donnell’s letter concluded as follows: “I hope you will consider the request. I recognize that your identification of the sailor in the 1945 photo is a business decision that only your organization can make. I would be happy to answer any questions that you might pose or provide any additional information. . . . It would be very sad if this situation is not resolved during George’s lifetime.”
Once again, LIFE did not reply.
Capt. Jerry O’Donnell was not accustomed to being ignored. George Mendonsa was well schooled in such treatment. In fact, he could be considered an expert. LIFE had tutored him well. They continued to do so. And the carousel went round and round, faster and faster.