TOKYO -- A planned U.S. commemorative stamp, declaring that atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki "hastened" the end of World War II, is an "affront to the feelings of the Japanese people," Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama declared last night.
The stamp, to be issued next year as one of a series commemorating the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, depicts a mushroom cloud and carries a caption reading, "Atomic bombs hasten the war's end, August, 1945."
The flare-up marked the second acrimonious dispute over the anniversary.
Plans by the Smithsonian Institution to display the Enola Gay (the B-29 that dropped the Hiroshima bomb) and artifacts of the bomb's effects stirred protests from American veterans groups and Congress.
They complained that showing the suffering caused by the bombs' use distorted the historical backdrop of the bombings.
Ambassador Walter F. Mondale warned of impending emotional trouble over commemorations of the end of World War II planned in both countries. "Here we are 50 years after the war and we still cannot agree on the facts of what happened," he said recently.