It’s important to remember that, though Brian Williams was forced to resign in disgrace for telling multiple lies, the ex-NBC Nightly News anchor made plenty of obnoxious, stupid comments before he lost his job.
It was 16 years ago this week, on August 5, 2005, that Williams prodded an Enola Gay pilot about his “remorse” for dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945. (This was for the then-60th anniversary of Hiroshima.)Talking to the late Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk at the Smithsonian, the NBC journalist scolded the veteran as the two stood near the Enola Gay. Van Kirk was having none of it:
BRIAN WILLIAMS: You just told me the story about one photograph from the war that always kind of catches you, the Japanese soldier returning to his city that's been destroyed. Do you have remorse for what happened? How do you deal with that in your mind?
THEODORE 'DUTCH' VAN KIRK: No, I do not have remorse. I pity the people who were there. I always think of it, Brian, as being, the dropping of the atom bomb was an act of war to end a war.
Earlier in the segment, Williams, over video devastation of injured children, lectured:
70,000 people in the city of Hiroshima were killed instantly. The lingering radiation killed 70,000 more over the next five years. But Dutch and his fellow crew members will have none of the controversy surrounding the bomb. They point out that the firebombing of Japanese cities earlier in the war killed four times as many people. It's widely believed the U.S. would have invaded Japan, and that the Japanese would have fought to the very end.
(For more on this, see the MRC's Brent Baker and his original August 5, 2005 story.) For more examples from our FLASHBACK series, which we call the NewsBusters Time Machine, go here.
Here’s a partial transcript. Click “expand” to read more:
NBC Nightly News
8/5/2005BRIAN WILLIAMS: OVER VIDEO OF THE DEVASTATION AND INJURED CHILDREN, WILIAMS INTONED: 70,000 people in the city of Hiroshima were killed instantly. The lingering radiation killed 70,000 more over the next five years. But Dutch and his fellow crew members will have none of the controversy surrounding the bomb. They point out that the firebombing of Japanese cities earlier in the war killed four times as many people. It's widely believed the U.S. would have invaded Japan, and that the Japanese would have fought to the very end.
WILLIAMS TO VAN KIRK AS THE TWO STOOD NEXT TO THE ENOLA GAY: You just told me the story about one photograph from the war that always kind of catches you, the Japanese soldier returning to his city that's been destroyed. Do you have remorse for what happened? How do you deal with that in your mind?
VAN KIRK REPLIED EMPHATICALLY: No, I do not have remorse. I pity the people who were there. I always think of it, Brian, as being, the dropping of the atom bomb was an act of war to end a war.
