That is one of the most unbelievable episodes of television I know of. I read about it pre-Internet in John Hersey's amazing account of Tanimoto's life at the end of his book
Hiroshima but had never thought to look for it since then. Here's an excerpt about the program:
Next came the shocker. In walked a tall, fattish American man, whom Edwards introduced as Captain Robert Lewis, copilot of the Enola Gay on the Hiroshima mission. In a shaky voice, Lewis told about the flight. Tanimoto sat there with a face of wood. At one point, Lewis broke off, closed his eyes, and rubbed his forehead, and forty million watchers across the land must have thought he was crying. (He was not. He has been drinking. Years later, Marvin Green told a young journalist named Rodney Barker, who was writing a book on the Maidens, that Lewis had panicked the show people by failing to turn up that afternoon for the rehearsal of all the participants except Tanimoto. It seemed that he had expected to be given a fat check for appearing on the show, and when he learned that he would not, he had gone out bar crawling. Green said he had found the copilot in time to get a cup of coffee in him before the show. )
Edwards: "Did you write something in your log at that time?"
Lewis: "I wrote down the words, 'My God, what have we done?'"
After that, Chisa Tanimoto trotted onstage with clipped steps, because she was wearing what she never wore at home—a kimono. In Hiroshima, she had been given two days to uproot herself—and the four children she and her husband now had—and get to Los Angeles. There they had all been incarcerated in a hotel, kept strictly away from their husband and father. For the first time on the show, Tanimoto's expression changed—to surprise; he seemed to have become a stranger to pleasure. Next, two of the Maidens, Toyoko Minowa and Tadako Emori, were presented in silhouette behind a translucent screen, and Edwards made a pitch to the audience for money for the Maidens' operations. And, finally, the four Tanimoto children—daughter Koko, who had been an infant in the bombing, now ten; son Ken, seven; daughter Jun, four; and son Shin, two—came running out into their father's arms.
***
INCOMING TELEGRAM:
CONFIDENTIAL
FROM: TOKYO
TO: SECRETARY OF STATE
MAY 12, 1955
EMBASSY-USIS SHARE WASHINGTON CONCERN LEST HIROSHIMA GIRLS PROJECT GENERATE UNFAVORABLE PUBLICITY. ...
TANIMOTO IS LOOKED UPON HERE AS SOMETHING OF A PUBLICITY SEEKER. MAY WELL TRY TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF TRIP TO RAISE FUNDS FOR HIROSHIMA MEMORIAL PEACE CENTER, HIS PET PROJECT. DO NOT BELIEVE HE IS RED OR RED-SYMPATHIZER, BUT HE CAN EASILY BECOME SOURCE OF MISCHIEVOUS PUBLICITY
By diplomatic pouch:
SECRET
The Reverend Tanimoto is pictured as one who appears to be anti-Communist and probably sincere in his efforts to assist the girls. ... However, in his desire to enhance his own prestige and importance he might ignorantly, innocently, or purposefully lend himself to or pursue a leftist line. ...
RALPH J. BLAKE
AMERICAN CONSUL GENERAL, KOBE
UPON getting back East after the show, Robert Lewis, who had resigned from the Air Force and was working as personnel manager of Henry Heide, candy makers, in New York, was called to the Pentagon and given a heavy chewing out by the Defense Department.
