Proceedings of the Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs
Issue 5 - Evidence - May 2, 2007
OTTAWA, Wednesday, May 2, 2007
The Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence met this day at 12:08 p.m. to study on the services and benefits provided to members of the Canadian Forces, veterans of war and peacekeeping missions and members of their families in recognition of their services to Canada.
Senator Joseph A. Day (Chairman) in the chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Good afternoon. My name is Joseph Day, and I am a senator from New Brunswick. I am the chair of this Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence.
Before beginning, I want to introduce briefly the members of the committee. My deputy chair, Senator Atkins, represents Ontario during the regular part of the year and New Brunswick during the summer.
On my left is Senator Kenny who represents Ontario. He chairs our parent committee, the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence.
We may have Senator Downe joining us in due course, and I will not interrupt the proceedings to introduce him at that point in time. He represents the province of Prince Edward Island.
Honourable senators, it is my pleasure to welcome on your behalf today representatives from the Canadian War Museum.
As honourable senators know, we have been holding hearings with respect to public debate in relation to the interpretation of one of the displays. I do not want to give it a higher level of definition than is necessary. Some would describe it as a controversy and a difference in interpretation with respect to a Bomber Command display.
I believe that we will show on the screen for those watching on television the wording as we go through the presentations so the title, ``An Enduring Controversy,'' of the particular panel in question can be seen. I want it to be clear that this committee is in no way engaging in any rewriting of history. That was also made clear by previous witnesses representing the various military organizations.
We also want to acknowledge the fine work at the Canadian War Museum, the professional manner in which that work is performed and the wonderful service offered to the Canadian public with respect to the work of the museum in general.
Appearing before us this afternoon on behalf of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the parent organization for the Canadian War Museum, is Victor Rabinovitch, President and Chief Executive Officer, and from the Canadian War Museum is Joe Geurts, Director and Chief Executive Officer, and Dean Oliver, Director, Research and Exhibitions.
Also appearing, as an individual in this instance, but someone who knows the Canadian War Museum through past activities and tremendous contribution, and a good friend of veterans and history in Canada, is Jack Granatstein.
Honourable senators, at this stage I will turn over the microphone to Mr. Geurts, who I believe will begin with a presentation. Others may like to make some points and then we will go to questions from senators if that suits your objectives.
J. (Joe) Geurts, Director and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian War Museum: Thank you very much, honourable senators. I am pleased to be here today to discuss the matter before the subcommittee and to try to answer any questions you may have.
I have been the Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian War Museum since 2000. For context purposes, this was shortly after the announcement that a new Canadian War Museum was to be built here in Ottawa. From 2000 until 2005, I managed the team that envisaged, planned and constructed the new war museum. I want to begin my remarks by briefly describing the Canadian War Museum.
The Canadian War Museum is an affiliate of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, established by the Museums Act of 1990. It is a separate museum from the Canadian Museum of Civilization, although both museums are managed by the legal entity entitled the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation.
The Canadian War Museum has its own director, senior management team and staff. It shares some corporate resources with the Canadian Museum of Civilization in areas such as finance and human resources, but in key museum functions such as research, collections and public programs, the Canadian War Museum charts its own course.
The content of its exhibitions and programs is determined by and reflects the scholarship and the expertise of the professional staff of the Canadian War Museum. It is not dictated to by the Canadian Museum of Civilization.
You invited us here today in response to concerns raised by the Royal Canadian Legion, the Air Force Association of Canada and others regarding a text panel entitled, ``An Enduring Controversy,'' which is part of the air war exhibit in gallery 3 of the Canadian War Museum.
As the director of the Canadian War Museum, I and my staff believe and have always believed that the storyline presented in the air war exhibit is historically accurate, in context, and effective in delivering important messages to our visitors. We also believe that the panel in question, ``An Enduring Controversy,'' is indisputable in its presentation and in its broader historical context. As Dr. Oliver will summarize in a few comments, the contemporary scholarly and historical debate over the campaign and its effects continue, and the panel reflects this fact.
Read within the context of the broader storyline, visitors to the Canadian War Museum learn of Canada's important contribution to this campaign against Germany and its war-making potential. Indeed, the panel in question notes the eventual effectiveness of this campaign while adjacent text, panels and photographs speak to the resources it drained from Germany's other fighting fronts.
The space also speaks dramatically to the thick defences Canadian and Allied air crew battled through to achieve their objectives, and the losses tragically incurred in doing so. It is important to understand that the nature of this space and all others in the museum derive in part from the way in which the new museum developed, and that this long process continually benefited from public consultation.
Honourable senators, Canadians' views and opinions, indeed their expectations of this new war museum, have been a critical factor in the museum's emergence. Arising from the discussions around the proposed Holocaust gallery in the war museum over a decade ago, Canadians spoke loudly and clearly about the need for a new building.
The Canadian War Museum responded and expanded its war museum advisory committee to include representations from groups such as the Royal Canadian Legion, the National Council of Veterans Associations, the Department of National Defence and the Department of Veterans Affairs of Canada, and prominent individuals from the military and academic communities. Since that time, representatives of these and other groups of Canadians have been consulted throughout the conception, design and building of the new war museum.
I will now highlight some key aspects of the consultative process. First, museum staff developed what we call a storyline — a framework defining the context, content and consequences of Canada's military history. Expressed through specific themes, artefacts and interpretive features, this storyline guided the design and development of the museum's physical spaces, permanent and temporary exhibitions, displays and other features. This draft storyline was presented formally and informally to groups of students, academics and current and retired military personnel in communities across the country. Their input helped to refine the final storyline presented in the museum and convey the messages we wanted to present to visitors.
Next, the architectural design of the new museum evolved through a significant public consultation across Canada in community meetings and via email. In this consultation as well, many veterans were consulted or participated. Working closely with the National Capital Commission and guided by the results of this consultative process, the architects designed the building to fit comfortably with Ottawa's many nationally significant landmarks, and to provide a focus for the future development of LeBreton Flats, a former industrial precinct.
Our dialogue with veterans continues on many issues, including our Witness to History Program through which veterans engage visitors in their personal stories, our Oral History Program through which these stories are recorded for future generations, the Royal Canadian Legion poster contest, commemorative events such as Remembrance Week and on many other fronts.
In fact, as outlined in my letter to you of April 25, we have been corresponding with and speaking to veterans and others for well over a year on the issue of strategic bombing. Dr. Oliver and I met personally with appointed representatives of the veterans' community: Don Elliott, Chair of the Mayday Committee; and Bob Dale, in Toronto on Sunday, June 25, 2006. The meeting was a result of an offer made to Mr. Elliott in writing by the then chair of our board of trustees on April 7, 2006.
In part, as a result, after a long, amiable session, and a full exploration of the historical issues surrounding the campaign in its presentation, the museum made approximately 10 adjustments to its air war exhibit, changes that were then communicated to the Mayday Committee and others.
Since June 2006, I have communicated personally with Mr. Elliott on numerous occasions and with a number of other representatives of veterans' organizations across the country. We have spoken with, or written repeatedly to, veterans throughout this period. We have also hosted and toured through the galleries many air war veterans or other parties, including Mr. Elliott, General Carr, General Daley and others, and offered public comment and interviews as appropriate to a public museum. These comments were made to individual air war veterans, who asked us to explain our position in person, and delegations from associations or other bodies. We have never been unwilling to discuss issues with veterans or other Canadians on this or any other issue.
The October 5 meeting to which General Daley referred to before this committee several weeks ago, was an invitation to meet with representatives of air crew associations to discuss the panel again. I indicated in a telephone conversation with General Daley that we had carefully reviewed all previous submissions and comments on Bomber Command, and had made several adjustments to the air war exhibit as a result of the Toronto meeting. Upon careful reflection for a number of days and our belief that no further changes were warranted, I informed General Daley that I did not think an additional meeting would be productive. We therefore mutually agreed that the meeting should not be carried out.
Apart from the planning for the new museum as described earlier, the Canadian War Museum has had no greater dialogue with veterans than it has had on this issue. We have engaged fully in this dialogue because the veterans' reactions are important to us. However, a point was reached where we had exchanged fully and made appropriate adjustments and additions. We continue to believe that the air war exhibit is respectful of the contribution and sacrifices of veterans, but we can make no further changes without revising the history reflected in the panel, ``An Enduring Controversy.''
As part of the continuing concern of the panel on the part of some veterans, the subject was raised at a November 2006 meeting of the Canadian War Museum Committee, a subcommittee of our board of trustees of the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation, which includes representation from various veterans groups. Dr. Rabinovitch will brief you in detail on the outcome of this meeting and the steps he took to make a final determination on the panel.
Visitors to the Canadian War Museum understand the museum's approach to history and the scholarly but sensitive ways in which its exhibits draw upon personal stories and the human experience of war, to interpret Canada's military past for all Canadians. The museum stands firmly on its scholarship and professionalism and has made a profound emotional connection with its visitors.
The evidence of the museum's respect for veterans and the history they have lived is clear and accessible to over one million visitors to the museum since opening in May 2005. The thousands of visitors' comments cards received to this date also attest to this fact.
The long-running debate on the strategic bombing campaign and its effects continue. The museum's panel reflects this fact. The storyline in the air war exhibit helps visitors appreciate Canada's vital contribution to this campaign against Germany and its war-making potential.
I thank you again for hearing me today.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Geurts. Next is Mr. Rabinovitch.
Victor Rabinovitch, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Museum of Civilization: Thank you as well for the invitation to appear here today. My colleagues and I are delighted to be with you. I welcome the opportunity to speak with you not only about a panel in the Canadian War Museum, but also the larger issue of the role and mandate of this museum.
Mr. Geurts has described to you the issue of the text panel in the air war exhibit. The issue is one that we have been dealing with for some time. We have met with and listened to many individuals and many groups. We have received and responded to letters and emails. Some of these letters and emails ask us to consider changes; others ask us not to alter the panel in any way. We have reviewed the panel and the entire air war exhibit. We have added information and have made adjustments to the presentation. Throughout this process, we have carefully balanced the fundamental requirements to present information that is faithful to the most current understanding of the debate surrounding strategic bombing with the requirement, as elsewhere in the war museum, that we be accurate, fair and deeply respectful.
Since the opening of the Canadian War Museum in 2005, no other single issue has been more thoughtfully reviewed and reconsidered by museum management and staff than this issue, the panel text, ``An Enduring Controversy.'' We ask ourselves, did we get it right? Does the text, as stated, reflect current understanding of the issue? Does the presentation of the issue correspond to the mandate of a national public military history museum? In response to all these questions that we have explored, we have answered honestly to ourselves and to the public, yes.
In November, 2006, as Mr. Geurts has mentioned, the issue was considered by the Canadian War Museum committee, which, as you know, is a committee of the board of trustees of the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation. The then chair of that committee, General Paul Manson, reported to the board of trustees that the veterans' organizations on that committee had expressed their concerns about the way they feel the panel depicts the efforts of Bomber Command. General Manson also reported to the trustees that the committee meeting had concluded without reaching any agreement.
The board of trustees then directed me, as the president and chief executive officer for the corporation as a whole, to make a final determination regarding the panel. The trustees did so because they understood that their role as a board is not to provide curatorial wording and oversight to the management and staff of the Canadian War Museum. The responsibility for content resides entirely with the professional museum staff. I agreed with the board's request to review the exhibit.
To conduct this review, in addition to relying on the expertise of war museum staff, I sought external advice from four professional historians of established national reputations. Each was asked to visit the Canadian War Museum, to review the exhibit and to write to me regarding their personal assessments.
The historians I consulted are: First, Dr. David Bercuson, Director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary; second, Dr. Serge Bernier, who is in his professional role, the Director of History and Heritage at the Department of National Defence here in Ottawa — I had spoken to him and approached him in his personal capacity as an historian; third, Dr. Margaret MacMillan, the Provost of Trinity College, University of Toronto; and fourth, Dr. Desmond Morton, the Hiram Mills Emeritus Professor at McGill University. All these individuals are of high reputation.
The historians were asked to respond to two sets of questions while taking into account the interpretive development guideline, which is the professional development guideline used in the Canadian War Museum.
The first set was, does the Canadian War Museum section on the strategic air bombing campaign provide a balanced presentation on this aspect of Canada's role in the Second World War? Does it explain the part that strategic bombing played in the wider European military campaign?
The second set was, one text panel in the current war museum installation, titled ``An Enduring Controversy,'' has been criticized by some people. Does this panel appropriately present current understanding of some of the impacts of the bombing campaign during the war? ``
Their responses to the first question indicated a consensus of views. All reported that the exhibit presents a fair summary of the aims and objectives of strategic bombing, the roles played by Canada, and the costs in casualties to Canadian and Allied air crews. The exhibit was described by the historians as being well balanced and accurate in explaining the role of Allied strategic bombing in the conduct of the wider European campaign.
Regarding the second question on the ``An Enduring Controversy'' panel, two of the historians advised that it appropriately explains the debates on the morality, effectiveness and costs of the bombing campaign. They also noted, with approval, that different wartime voices in the debate are also included on the panel through quoted words by these actual participants.
One of the four historians also agreed that there is an enduring controversy regarding the bomber offensive, stating that no one ought to be offended by the mere presentation of the morality question as part of ``An Enduring Controversy.'' It is, he states, an enduring controversy, but he also felt that the war museum's panel and photos are not sufficiently neutral in their presentation, and he suggested to me several possible changes.
The fourth historian expressed his concern with the selected photographs and what he took to be an editorial tone of the panel. He questioned whether the panel is needed at all.
The advice presented to me by these four historians assisted me in arriving at two conclusions. First, there are no grounds for revision to the air war exhibit as a whole. The exhibit as a whole is accurate and well-balanced in its presentation on one aspect of the Second World War. Second, the panel, ``An Enduring Controversy,'' appropriately reflects the essential arguments that have been part of the strategic bombing issue for 60 years or longer.
The advice from the independent historians I consulted demonstrated the range of opinions that experts express today when assessing the strategic bombing issue. These issues are sensitive, and I wish to underline them: Morality and effectiveness are not secondary matters which can be passed over lightly in any serious historical presentation. The historians were also helpful to me in reminding all of us that this controversy began even while the war was still being waged. The debate continues. It is not an invention of recent historical revisionism. There is, beyond any question, an enduring controversy. The scholarship of historians today continues to explore these issues with added information gathered from new research.
Taking all this advice into account, I have concluded that the air war exhibit, including the text panel in question, provides an accurate and fair presentation of the best information known to historians today. It does so in its overview texts, detailed explanations, photographs, films and artifact displays. Above all, in my mind, the entire exhibit is deeply respectful of individual people. It recounts the stories of men who lost their lives or their freedom for a number of years or their health, in some cases permanently, because they were members of bomber aircrews.
Of course, research and writing on this controversial subject is continuing, and new materials will emerge. They may cause us to modify our interpretation and texts in the future as part of normal exhibition management.
This brings me to perhaps the most salient point of my remarks today. As the president of a national museum corporation, on this issue, I cannot rely on finding unanimous advice on every issue, whether from independent historians or other scholars. It is my responsibility, acting in accordance with the direction expressed by a board of trustees, to reflect the highest standards of informed argument, reasoned judgment and scholarly thought. The professional approach to knowledge and its communication is essential to the air war topic and, frankly, to all museum topics.
As public museums, we collect information on our collective history. We create and share knowledge born in research, collections and field work, and we do so in an independent and professionally reliable manner. These principles have helped to ensure that our public institutions, whether museums, public broadcasters, universities or other educational institutions, are able to safeguard, protect, create and inspire.
The precise role for museums and their role in Canada's cultural policies are laid out in the words of Canada's Museum's Act, which was adopted in 1990. I will quote one particular section of that act. It states that the role of museums is:
. . . to increase, throughout Canada and internationally, interest in, knowledge and critical understanding of and appreciation and respect for human cultural achievements and human behaviour by establishing, maintaining and developing for research and posterity a collection of objects of historical or cultural interest, with special but not exclusive reference to Canada, and by demonstrating those achievements and behaviour, the knowledge derived from them and the understanding they represent.
Successive governments have entrusted their national museums and archives with a unique role in the preservation of our collective history. In representing the country as a whole, nationally and internationally, in engaging Canadians in an understanding of our common and collective history and culture, and also as centres of authoritative, authentic and coherent knowledge, other cultural institutions have roles that are similarly sensitive and similarly engaged in the voicing of Canadian stories, narratives, information and even controversies.
It is a public trust that the Canadian War Museum holds with the utmost of importance. At the core of the museum's strategic plan is its mission to promote understanding of Canada's military history in its personal, national and international dimensions. Beyond the mission comes the vision, and the vision of the war museum is to be a centre of excellence in Canadian military history and to be a uniquely valued public museum for Canadians.
In doing this, the war museum seeks to be an innovator and international leader in the professional treatment of difficult subjects related to war and conflict. I want to emphasize those words: the difficult subjects related to war and conflict.
We have many examples even in the short existence of the new war museum of how we are going about doing this. ``Weapons of Mass Dissemination: the Propaganda of War,'' was the opening exhibition at the war museum. The current exhibition, ``Afghanistan: a Glimpse of War,'' continues to attract wide public attention and interest in Canada and abroad. I recently returned from the United Kingdom, and leading diplomatic representatives of Canada asked if we could send the Afghanistan exhibition to London for exhibition there.
Our innovative public programming has included the presentation of plays, and I will name two of them. Naomi's Road treats the issue of forced relocation of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War and the subsequent seizure of their property, and ``Essuie tes larmes et tiens-toi debout!,'' or ``Wipe your Tears and Stand up Straight,'' focuses on the Rwandan genocide. As you can see, we are engaging with the difficult subjects of war and conflict.
In conclusion, I draw your attention to the remarkable success of the war museum, success that you, Mr. Chairman, and others have pointed to at the subcommittee. The war museum is a success in popularity, in emotional engagement and in intellectual integrity. We are profoundly respectful of the memories of people who have served in military conflicts in Canada's history. Everywhere you look in the museum, in the Royal Canadian Legion Hall of Honour, in the Memorial Hall, in the Regeneration Hall, and in the air war exhibition itself, all you see are expressions of respect for individuals.
The museum continues to lead in the re-emergence of military history as part of the mainstream of Canadian awareness and identity — not as a sub-thought, not as something off in the corner, but as part of the mainstream. This success is due to our commitment to exploring and recounting Canada's history on the basis of fact and knowledge, on the highest professional standards and with a commitment to providing a forum for dialogue and debate on complex issues that arise out of our military history.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you so much for hearing from us today.
The Chairman: Thank you, Dr. Rabinovitch. That is a helpful presentation. We will go on to Dr. Oliver.
Dean Oliver, Director, Research and Exhibitions, Canadian War Museum: Honourable senators, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you this afternoon on this important subject. As the director of research and exhibitions at the war museum, I will confine my comments to those three subjects that relate most directly to my area of professional responsibility. These issues are as follows: first, the actual content of the museum's air war display and, in particular, its material on the strategic bombing campaign; second, the content of the single panel, ``An Enduring Controversy,'' and a little bit on the text and photos that surround it; and third, the amendments already made to the air war display in response to the museum's dialogue with a group of veterans, led by Don Elliott in Toronto.
First, the gallery content: The museum's presentation of the air war is located in its Second World War gallery, one of the building's six permanent exhibitions. Like every other permanent gallery, this one covers a great period of time, many subjects and multiple stories, but its essence can be reduced to a handful of simple messages. The first of these in the Second World War gallery is the collapse of the international system in the 1930s due to the demands of aggressive dictatorships — Germany, Italy and Japan — and how those demands led directly to world war.
The second message, which occupies — appropriately enough — by far the greatest amount of space in the Second World War gallery, is how from a state of relative weakness, Canada developed a massive and significant contribution to the war effort.
The third message is the justness of that struggle from the Allied side, there having been, then and now, no reasonable alternative to victory.
These three simple messages — that the Axis started it, that Canada played a huge role in response to aggression and that the war had to be won — were the essential ingredients in building the Second World War gallery and the thematic core around which all other items there coalesced.
In the end, there were several hundred messages or points of history that the gallery was intended to communicate, plus hundreds of artifacts, sound and light effects, text panels, interactive stations and other items and techniques.
There was also a commitment to ensure that the story, there and elsewhere in the museum, reflected the personal experiences of those who had lived this period, that it was honest and — within the understandable limits imposed by space, time and, as always, money — comprehensive. However, physically as well as intellectually, the gallery was arranged to privilege these three points: Who started it, what we did in ending it and why our efforts in doing so could never and can never be forgotten.
These points are best illustrated by describing briefly the gallery as a whole. As many senators will no doubt recall from past visits, at least one of which was conducted by my colleagues and I, one enters gallery 3 by passing Hitler's car, a map showing Axis aggression in the 1930s and the photographs of flames and casualties in Poland in 1939 and in London in 1940 with their accompanying texts. One passes beneath video of Axis conquests and a quote from Prime Minister Mackenzie King commenting on ``the evil'' that has been let loose in the world. There is no doubt as to mood, tone or responsibility.
After this introduction, the bulk of the gallery chronicles Canada's evolving response to the war, tracing in more or less chronological order how from humble beginnings we developed a massive air training plan; how we fought with Allies to clear the Atlantic Ocean of German U-Boats; how we revamped industry and agriculture in a total war effort to support the fighting fronts; and how we took the fight to the enemy, at first by air, then by land, in pursuit of victory.
As the stories of Hong Kong and Dieppe indicate, not all our efforts were successful. As our treatment of Japanese Canadians demonstrates, not all of them were beyond reproach, either. Yet on the whole, the story is one of commitment and sacrifice, of courage and achievement, even in the midst of brutal war and untold horror.
The gallery concludes, after victory in northwest Europe and in the Pacific and Indian oceans by reminding visitors of the enemies against which we fought. Visitors leave this story with evidence of the Holocaust on their left and the brutality of the Japanese militarists on their right. There are Canadian video testimonies straight ahead, wherein veterans and loved ones explain why they fought and what they found and felt on their return to Canada.
This is the vital context into which the museum's air war gallery fits, between the disaster at Dieppe on the one hand and the bloody but successful counteroffensives in Italy, Sicily and Northwest Europe on the other, the period in which striking back at Axis-occupied Europe was mainly an air force responsibility.
This is not only the story of Bomber Command or strategic bombing, but clearly strategic bombing is its principal component, which is why in the air war segment, it occupies pride of place.
As the text indicates, nearly three quarters of the Royal Canadian Air Force's fatal casualties during the war occurred on this mission. The air war section indicates repeatedly the size and nature of the Canadian effort. It discusses the strategic context to air operations and it identifies the nature of enemy defences against which Canadians were pitted. It includes casualty and loss statistics, large artifacts like a German 88-millimetre anti-aircraft gun, and small ones like the casualty notification telegrams to a Canadian family whose son was killed in air battles over Europe.
It stresses the human experience of taking this fight to the enemy. One wall is devoted to the experiences of Canadian air personnel in a variety of media, from art work to a flight suit, and then discusses the nature of the German defence effort, including the many resources Germany committed to fending off or recovering from bomber attacks.
Several personal stories highlight this space, which has large-screen videos at both ends and a Spitfire aircraft — representative of another aspect of Canada's air war — overhead, as well as stories about fighter pilots, women air personnel and other contributions at its far end. The space, of course, contains the panel, ``An Enduring Controversy,'' on which a great deal of attention has been focused. It is critical we understand what else it contains as well.
Everyone who has reviewed or evaluated this space as a whole, including several presenters to this subcommittee two weeks ago and all four historians invited by Dr. Rabinovitch to review aspects of the museum's air war display, agree that this context is fairly and professionally done. Yet, somehow, criticisms of the single panel it contains then proceed as though none of the rest exists.
This is not a side issue to the one before us but a critical aspect of the way in which museums construct exhibitions and the ways, of course, in which visitors experience them. The context of Bomber Command and the air war section is provided by those stories that precede and follow it in the exhibition, just as the broader story of the air war provides the necessary context for the single panel on ``An Enduring Controversy.''
Second, what is the importance of the panel content itself? The panel, ``An Enduring Controversy,'' at the heart of our current discussion with air veterans is at least as important for what it does not say as for what it says. As in the context referred to above, this content is critical for honourable senators and all Canadians interested in these proceedings to understand, not the least of which are veterans of Bomber Command. Neither the panel text, nor the photo captions, nor any other exhibit element says or implies that there was any criminality or legal wrongdoing by Allied air personnel in the conduct of the air war. There has never been, and is not now, any such wording in the exhibition.
I cannot even begin to understand fully the memories and feelings of veterans of the air war as they reflect upon those days because I was not there. However, I can understand the strong feelings generated by this and any other aspect of our war history.
War, by its nature, has generated passions sufficiently strong that human beings will kill for them. Presenting the evidence of these deeds in an appropriate but accurate way is the ceaselessly complex but enormous privilege with which we have been entrusted. As an institution dedicated to the study of organized human conflict, therefore, the museum understands that every issue within its realm of professional competence can generate this kind of passion.
A great part of this work is ensuring that even in the most contested and bitterly argued areas, the material presented, singly and in combination, is fair, accurate and respectful in communicating those facts and ideas critical to understanding the exhibit.
In this case, it is one thing to disagree with the museum's characterization of the more than 60 years of intense debate surrounding the issue. It is another, however, to slip even from the best of all possible intentions into the hyperbole that surrounds use of the phrase ``war crimes.''
As the museum wrote to honourable senators last week, the suggestion that the museum sought to attack the reputation of veterans with intentional fallacy, as one presenter did here two weeks ago, is a charge that impacts fundamentally the professionalism, ethics and intention of the museum and every member of its staff.
Neither does the museum accuse Allied aircrew of being immoral. Indeed, the air war section is filled with personal and human stories that portray the heroes of the air war in anything but this light. No such gratuitous slight appears in any other gallery, either, anywhere in the building, nor would it.
Instead, the essential points on the panel are straightforward. The most basic of these points is that the strategic bombing campaign remains ``bitterly contested'' or ``hotly debated,'' which is phraseology that some correspondents have suggested as alternative wording.
What the museum does say, which is that the strategic bombing campaign is an enduring controversy, remains beyond all reasonable doubt, as even General Daley and others have noted. The points of contention are many, ranging from the morality of the campaign itself and the civilian deaths it countenanced, to the nature and conduct of the fighting, to the wartime and post-war debates about its ultimate effectiveness.
Those who have suggested that only historians debate this issue are partly right, and a previously written museum text on its website used that word in reference to the post-war debate, but they are largely wrong too. The debate over bombing's morality and its potential value was conducted even before the war by military authorities in the various services, by the politicians who funded their efforts and by the many writers, philosophers, church leaders and others who had witnessed first the effects of air power on civilians in the Spanish Civil War, and later, the Axis and Allied campaigns in much of the rest of Europe.
These people were not primarily historians. They were contemporaries. While most of them remained solidly behind the Allied effort during the war, many broke ranks afterwards and the first post-war critiques of strategic bombing were written by wartime military commanders or former military personnel.
Even during the war, as most serious accounts note, there was considerable unease about the strategic bombing effort. In Canada, a public opinion poll in January 1943 asked people if they supported ``bombing Germany's civilian population.'' Not surprisingly, 57 per cent of respondents approved, but 38 per cent disapproved. In other words, at the height of the war, nearly two in five Canadians opposed bombing enemy civilians.
Such wartime sentiments were hardly confined to Canada. The following fall, in October 1943, Arthur Harris, who commanded the Bomber Offensive, worried that in response to the supposed squeamishness of Allied civilians — and he specifically mentioned Americans — the British government had been, he said, soft-pedalling to them what the effort was all about, unduly focusing its propaganda on raids against factories and not telling the truth, that the raids were against cities and the civilians who lived there.
The following extended quotation is from Harris's letter to the undersecretary of state for air, and a critical document in understanding Bomber Command's mission in the opinion of the man who led it. ``By obscuring this purpose,'' he wrote, the real objective of Bomber Command, ``we simply rob the operation of most of its point.'' He cautioned that it risked lowering the morale of his bomber crews, who ``are bound to think (and do think) that the authorities are ashamed of area bombing.'' He urged three policy decisions on the government as a result. First, he wrote, the real aim of the offensive
. . . should be unambiguously, publicly stated. That aim is the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers and the disruption of civilized community life throughout Germany.
The second quote is
. . . it should be emphasized that the destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives; the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale; and the breakdown of morale both at home and at the battle fronts by fear of extended and intensified bombing, are accepted and intended aims of our bombing policy. They are not by-products of attempts to hit factories.
The third quote is
. . . it should be made clear that the destruction of factory installations is only a part and by no means the most important part of the plan. Acreages of housing devastation are infinitely more important.
If the panel's first essential point is the debate that still surrounds the campaign, its second is the end result of Bomber Command's military effort. Here too, while numbers in many secondary sources vary, in part as a result of the incompleteness of wartime German records, the basic statistics on the campaign's human effects are not in doubt. Canada's official history of the air war, on which we relied heavily, uses similar statistics.
More contentious perhaps is the assessment that German war production was not substantially reduced until the closing months of the war, but even here the museum's text represents an accurate, reasonable summation of the best scholarship on the subject.
Depending upon the indices one measures, critical elements of war production did not begin to fall until January 1944 at the earliest, and the winter of 1944-45 at the latest. While historians disagree, sometimes vehemently so, over why this was the case, German ingenuity and greater economic effort on the one hand or Bomber Command's ineffectiveness on the other, most agree at least that it was the case, which is all, in the end, that the museum's text actually says. Moreover, the museum does allow in its text that war production was substantially reduced by Bomber Command's efforts in the last months of the war.
These conclusions are hardly unanimous in the literature on the subject, which now runs to more than 600 books and memoirs, and hundreds more articles, theses and theatrical productions. However, they are the considered conclusions of the museum's historical staff and they reflect the best contemporary scholarship we have reviewed, including, most notably, the official histories of Canada and the United Kingdom. There is always, in any historical product, scope for reasonable disagreement, word edits and alternative points of view. However, there is a certain point beyond which such disagreements represent fundamental change and not differences of degree. The reason museum officials did not alter the specific text of the panel, ``An Enduring Controversy,'' was that, in whole or in part, the changes proposed to us entailed a fundamental shift in what we believed to be the essential aspects of the history.
In the end there is a great and lasting controversy over this military operation. It did not have its desired impact until the last months of the war. As the rest of the air war space and the entire Second World War gallery make clear, none of this controversy in any way detracts from the courage and the sacrifice of Canadians who conducted the campaign.
Finally, on the changes already made, it is important to note that the museum, as a result of its meeting with Mr. Elliott's group last summer, made several additions to the space in response to the Mayday Committee's observations and assistance.
First, the museum added extra material to two panels to explain the term ``strategic bombing'' and its military origins, and to place air attacks on civilians in the conduct of the war in better historical context.
Second, the museum added text dealing with two additional areas of concern to veterans: the positive morale effects of Allied air attacks on Allied military personnel and civilians, and specific reference to the idea of the air war as a ``second front.''
Third, the museum simplified one of the two main text panels at the start of the air war space to remove material that was already covered in the ``An Enduring Controversy'' space.
Fourth, the museum added material to two text captions and an additional photograph near the ``An Enduring Controversy'' display, to bring greater emphasis to the German resources drained away from other efforts by Bomber Command's attacks.
Fifth, the museum, responding to the criticism that its text panel represented only the verdict of historians who had not lived, and therefore could not understand the air war, added three quotations from wartime contemporaries to the space immediately adjacent to the panel. One of these, from Arthur Harris, was a cogent and reasonable interpretation of the campaign's great effects. This is from its commanding officer's perspective, and not one of the more bloody- minded quotes for which Harris, in some texts, is more infamously remembered.
This dialogue was important and fruitful for the museum, not unlike dialogues we have conducted with several other individuals or groups since opening two years ago. It resulted in the greatest number of additions to the permanent exhibition that we have ever effected, and they strengthened the presentation, a contribution for which we were, and remain, deeply grateful. They also addressed important issues that had been conveyed to us by some veterans. We were listening and listening carefully in this dialogue and we made changes as a result.
In conclusion, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to speak with you.
The Chairman: Thank you, Dr. Oliver. I appreciate that background information. Next is Dr. Granatstein.
Jack Granatstein, Historian, as an individual: Honourable senators, I cannot pretend to be unbiased about the Canadian War Museum. I was the director and CEO from 1998 to 2000. I was chair of the war museum's advisory committee for five years. I was a member of the board of trustees' war museum committee for three years, and then, in December 2006, I was made a trustee of the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation. I am now the chair of the board of trustees, war museum committee.
I also worked for seven years raising funds for the new war museum building. I hired the key historians who laid out the exhibits and storyline. I worked with the Legion and the Army, Navy and Air Force Veterans in Canada, ANAVETS, in building support for a new war museum, and I worked hand-in-glove with General Paul Manson on the Passing the Torch campaign. Together, we all created the best military history museum in the world, without doubt, and the best historical museum in Canada, again without doubt.
However, I am also a historian of Canada' military history. I have researched, written and studied this subject for more than 40 years. I appear today as a historian — independent, on my own.
It grieves me more deeply than I can say to be in opposition to old friends and colleagues, but this does not change my attitude to those whose war service I owe, all Canadians owe, the deepest gratitude. They saved the world from Hitler. That especially includes the Bomber Command veterans. They served with great courage in attacking Germany. Their fatal casualties, almost 10,000, were terrible. Not one Canadian airman alive today helped shape bombing policy. Scarcely any Canadians ever did. Their job was to fly and bomb and, given the technology available, they tried to be as accurate as possible in hitting their aiming points, but the simple truth is that everyone knew, from Air Marshall Sir Arthur Harris to Flight Sergeant Bloggs in a Lancaster turret, that accuracy was only rarely possible.
Was bombing effective? It forced the Germans to move aircraft and thousands of anti-aircraft guns to defend Germany, but German war production, much of it sustained by slave labour, continued to increase until late in the war. Would it have been higher still without bombing: certainly. Nonetheless, there is a continuing debate about the effectiveness of the bombing. My own, personal view is that it was effective, that it was a war-winning weapon that brought the war home to the German people, but the debate goes on, year after year.
Was bombing moral? Historians, philosophers and novelists have weighed in on this topic for more than 50 years, and they continue to do so. At least three or four were books published in English, and others in other languages, in the last year. This issue is without doubt one of the most hotly contested areas of debate about the Second World War.
It is not good enough to say that the Germans started it and reaped what they sowed. The Allies had to hit at the Nazis to help keep the Soviet Union in the war and to show their own people that they could strike the enemy's homeland. Only bombing could do this directly until late 1944. Realistically, to me, the morality question frankly was secondary to the necessity of winning the war. That was the first priority. Without doubt, there is an enduring controversy about the morality of bombing. It started during the war in the British Parliament, and some RCAF aircrew, in their letters home — I have published some of them — referred to their concerns about what they were doing. There is no sign that this controversy will cease.
If I had written the 60-word text panel in question, probably the wording would have been different. If anyone else had written it, probably the wording would have been different. However, there is no doubt in my mind that, whoever wrote it, the issues of effectiveness and morality would have been included. They are subjects of hot debate, so they must be included. We cannot change facts by ignoring them. We cannot stop historical controversies by pretending they do not exist. All that does, if tried, is to make individuals and institutions look unscholarly, even foolish.
It takes nothing away from the courage of Royal Canadian Air Force veterans, who did their duty, day after day, to say that there is controversy around the issues of effectiveness and morality. We owe the veterans everything, but it does not serve history well or serve truth to pretend that controversy does not exist where it does.
A good museum, let alone a great museum such as the Canadian War Museum, must serve historical truth. Otherwise, it can only be a storehouse for metals and artifacts and a vehicle for national braggadocio. A good museum has a pedagogical purpose. It instructs, teaches and, ideally, sends visitors home with questions in their mind and the desire to learn more. Some of the great questions around the Second World War unquestionably relate to bombing.
One final factor must be addressed. Museums sometimes make factual errors and can readily correct them. However, when virtually everyone agrees that the facts are as stated, then to make alterations to meet the demands of those who are unhappy with those facts opens the doors to others with similar demands. There is a long line-up of groups and individuals who want their cause presented more favourably or differently in the Canadian War Museum. A terrible precedent can be established if the facts are adjusted for one group. How, then, can the war museum resist the others?
Let me conclude with the opening lines of an article in the May/June issue of Legion Magazine, the magazine published by the Royal Canadian Legion. It is an article by Adam Day, entitled ``Historians Review the Bomber Command Display.'' The first paragraph states, ``More than half a century after the Allies launched their strategic bombing campaign against German industrial, military and civilian targets, the morality and effectiveness of the tactic are still being hotly debated.''
That, honourable senators, is precisely what the war museum's panel, ``An Enduring Controversy,'' says.
The Chairman: Thank you, Dr. Granatstein. I am glad you pointed out that a number of serving airmen wrote home and you published some letters in regard to them questioning the morality and not the effectiveness in this particular instance.
Mr. Granatstein: Yes.
The Chairman: Was there ever any large-scale refusal of the air crew to fly and follow orders based on moral consciousness?
Mr. Granatstein: To the best of my knowledge, no: There were cases of airmen refusing to fly, but that was usually attributed to what the air force called lack of moral fibre rather than the morality of what they were doing. I have never heard of aircrew refusing to fly because they disagreed with the policy.
The Chairman: They did not refuse to follow orders because they disagreed on moral grounds?
Mr. Granatstein: Yes.
The Chairman: I point out to honourable senators as well as witnesses that we only have 20 minutes left in this timeslot. Your comments were helpful. If it turns out that we cannot ask all our questions, we may have to ask questions and receive answers by correspondence, if that is acceptable.
Senator Atkins: I cannot help but comment, first, that the Canadian War Museum is a remarkable establishment. Anyone who has been involved with it deserves tremendous credit. That is important, because Canadians across the country can be proud of what we have here.
Having said that, I think it is also remarkable that the only controversy that I am aware of relates to a text panel. You may have had other problems to deal with, but none has polarized to the extent that this issue has. In that sense, I think it is too bad.
Do you have any flexibility?
Mr. Rabinovitch: We are here to listen, and we are pleased to hear any suggestions that might come forward. However, fundamentally, we need to deal with the facts at hand.
I think you have heard, particularly from Dr. Granatstein as well as from others, how the facts speak to us in the way that the text panel is there. We, like others, listen carefully and respectfully to ideas, suggestions and words that come from this Senate committee.
Senator Atkins: I think we have heard hardly any criticism of the text. We may have heard criticism in the way it is presented, both in terms of the headline and the photography.
Mr. Oliver: Which photography are you referring to in particular?
Senator Atkins: The civilians that are illustrated in one of the photos.
Mr. Oliver: To clarify, there is actually only one photograph of dead German civilians in the space. I believe the photograph is of dead Germans from Hamburg. The caption reads that it was photographs like this that fuelled in part the post-war debate about the controversy of strategic bombing.
Two other photographs are in the space. One of them describes the destruction of a German city, and the second one makes the point that much of the destruction done to German cities was as a result of the inaccuracy, particularly in the early years of the war, of Allied bombing efforts.
The three photographs together complement what is on the panel: One saying that technology caused much collateral damage, unintended deaths and loss; second, that loss was huge one way or the other; and, third, that images of German dead, many of which were currency at the time when Allied forces could get them — though often they could not — began to fuel, particularly after the war, a debate on what the morality of the campaign had been. Then, the text panel states, herein now is the debate.
The source of that particular picture was the Imperial War Museum, which we obtained for the exhibition.
Senator Atkins: My impression from members of previous panels is that the photograph is one of the most offensive things because it addresses the moral issue. In my impression from anything I have heard, I do not think anyone is arguing about the history and your historians' assessment of that.
The notion that it is historical revisionism is not something that I have heard in terms of any presentation that has been put forward.
Again, I ask you about the headline of ``An Enduring Controversy.'' Is there another way of using it in the text?
Mr. Oliver: I will take your two comments in order. Material has come in questioning almost all aspects of the history in the panel. Some of it is particular, for example, whether or not the 600,000 German dead figure is accurate. How do we know 5.5 million were left homeless versus 3 million or 10 million?
Also, we receive much commentary on the subject of revisionism. I say this having reviewed almost every letter that has come in before the hearing today to try to categorize the comments. A great deal of the commentary states that these debates, in the opinion of the letter writers, was not lodged in the wartime period at all, or even in the immediate post-wartime period: that it is almost fiction in the minds of the historians who are sort of Monday morning quarterbacks to the issue.
Second, the headline is as clear and as accurate as we can make it. It echoes closely the words used to describe it by any other reputable historian of which I am aware, and comes close to being a headline used by the Senate when it reviewed a similar issue some years ago in which it referred to the discussion over strategic bombing as an ongoing debate.
We can parse words here or there, but that is as close to being completely accurate as any account I know.
Senator Atkins: The impression I have is that there is no room for any flexibility. I want to hear from the panel that if the arguments are resilient, would they be open-minded to them or not?
Mr. Rabinovitch: I want to stress that it is not only a matter of reading the letters or emails that come in to us. They are not all of one opinion. We receive considerable correspondence and verbal comments from people saying: Do not change a thing. Leave it exactly as it is.
If suggestions come from the Senate committee, they are ones we will consider very carefully.
Senator Atkins: Thank you for your comments.
Senator Kenny: Welcome to our committee, gentlemen. I do not think anyone here is questioning the right or the propriety of the people who run the museum to run the museum as they believe best. That is not why we are here.
I also do not think it is the role of this committee to make suggestions to the museum or to this panel as to what should be written on any display, or what pictures should or should not be there. That is not our business.
However, I am troubled nonetheless. I want to go back to two comments. One was made by you, Mr. Rabinovitch, where you stated: ``As public museums, we collect information on our collective history. We create and share knowledge born in research, collections in field work . . . in an independent and professionally reliable manner. These principles have helped to ensure that our public institutions, whether museums, public broadcasters, universities or other educational institutions, are able to safeguard, protect, create and inspire.''
We, as a committee, have been confronted with a group of people who have been intimately involved with this exhibit and who feel aggravated, offended, embarrassed and humiliated.
I take your comment, and I put it beside the comment of Mr. Geurts where he states: ``We continue to believe that the air war exhibit is respectful of the contribution and sacrifices of veterans, but can make no further changes without revising the history reflected in the panel.''
It seems to me that the people involved in maintaining, preparing and creating exhibits could probably come up with a dozen different ways to reflect the truth. There is no magic set of words. There is no perfect description, unlike what is implied by the words in Mr. Geurts' presentation, ``no further changes without revising the history reflected in the panel.''
I do not believe that. I think you have the skills and capacity to reflect the historical truth with a whole lot of different words in a whole lot of different ways. Frankly, the obligation rests with the museum to see if they can come up with other ways that do not profoundly upset a group of people which is important to us. I do not think that is inconsistent with your integrity, which is important and vital. I do not think that is inconsistent with the truth, which is vital. I think there are different ways of describing things and some may cause less pain than others. I think that is the challenge that faces the museum.
I cannot believe that the museum wants to go ahead with the situation as it is. I cannot believe they want this group of people, who are heroes by anyone's definition, profoundly aggrieved with something that is not intended to offend them but to describe something that is accepted broadly.
The question came up: If we give in — the idea of even giving in troubles me — and we adjust things because people complain or groups come to us, where will it end? That is a phoney question. You have already made adjustments. Adjustments are going on all the time with history. History can be described in a number of different ways. My answer is, if other groups come to you and they have concerns, you judge them a case at a time. Why would you not? That approach seems reasonable.
I welcome responses from you, Mr. Rabinovitch, and you, Mr. Geurts. I am sure I will get one from Mr. Granatstein, so I do not need to go on. I cannot believe there is only one way that you folks can describe this.
Mr. Rabinovitch: Senator Kenny asks not only a profoundly important question, but does so in a manner that reflects the seriousness with which we all feel about the issue and our relationships with individual groups and veterans groups but also the much broader population, the population of Canadians. The museum is for all Canadians and for non-Canadians who choose to visit or choose to engage in dialogue with us.
I suspect all of us here, at this end, will want to chime in with an answer to your complex set of observations. Observations touch upon one comment from Dr. Granatstein regarding the broader issue: how do you portray history and deal with controversy? There are questions and comments about changes made thus far: I know Dr. Oliver would like to talk about that. Mr. Geurts has been involved intimately on the relationship side. I am sure we will all want to talk about something such as me responding to you and reflecting on what was asked of me by the board of trustees. We take profoundly seriously that relationship with that range of people. In the case of veterans particularly, people who have given so much of their lives, even including their lives, to enable us to have a Parliament like this, allows us to have a conversation like this.
Can things be stated differently? Each of us asked to sit down and write any panel text on any aspect would come up with a somewhat different way of writing that text. There is no question. Within the museum, when I rarely become involved with text — it is rare because other people are dealing with it — I am known to pick up a pen and change a word here and there; that is not unknown.
The deeper issue is with the substance of what is there on this one panel that is part of a much broader exhibit. That issue is profoundly important. Dr. Oliver has already alluded to it. Some people would rather we do not talk about issues of morality and effectiveness and we do not raise, in a museum setting, some of the difficult issues that are part of historical review and understanding. I think that challenge is the more difficult one to deal with. We give responses to everyone who contacts us. Where we have tried so hard to be clear and to say that this controversy, which goes back over such a long period of time, is an essential part of understanding how we judge our past and, in that way, perhaps how we shape our future.
My answer to you, sir, is, yes, words can be adjusted, but only if, in the end, we still bring out the fundamental issue and importance.
Perhaps my colleague, Mr. Geurts, could add to that.
Mr. Geurts: To respond, as Mr. Rabinovitch has said, I wish to respond to several points raised by the honourable senator.
In terms of being happy about being in this particular situation and having a group of veterans who are unhappy with us, clearly this is not where we want to be. It is not a situation that we enjoy. However, in turn, I will remind you that we did meet with this group of individuals. We went through a long conversation. Dr. Oliver and I, together with Don Elliott, responded to their points about history and what elements were missing or should be adjusted in the exhibition. We then moved on to another series of discussions. In particular, there was Dr. Oliver's presentation about the issue of war crimes and war criminals. This was another dimension that emerged later in the discussion. We honestly have sat back and assessed what is in that exhibition, as to whether anywhere in there we even hinted at those kinds of things. If we had found something that was true to that we would have changed that. We fundamentally cannot find any evidence of that. In turn, we have not responded to those kinds of thoughts.
We are always looking at these exhibitions. Something may come along that will cause us to change it but, again, we are truly doing this all in full respect of the veterans that have been there.
Mr. Oliver: In the end, senator, you are absolutely dead on: There is no magic formula for writing text. We take the best bead we can on the best literature we can find and we make the best cut at complicated issues. We know the moment we write them that they are dead on arrival, that someone will come along and critique them, complain about them and want something added or subtracted. We keep an open mind on every single one of the ``Tom-Clancy-like'' text amounts that are in the building but we try, when tweaking them and responding to reasonable concerns, to ensure those changes do not entail fundamental alterations to what we thought the scholarship was in the first place that we were trying to write. Every one of those comments that comes into the museum, or nearly every one, crosses my desk. I take every one down to that space. I read that panel and the ones around it and ask myself the simple question: Is there anything in here that I can change, in response to this critique that will not change the fundamental meaning of what is in that panel, that does not talk about the enduring controversy, the morality and value of the campaign, the time in which it became effective and the damage that it did? Thus far the answer every time, and it has been about 150 times or so, has been no. That is not to say that the next 150 or 1,500 that come through, I will not do the same thing, because I will. We do it for everyone that comes in, Bomber Command, Burma veterans, or anyone else, but the answer to your question is, they are always a floating target. They also always must protect the fundamental history on which the exhibitions rest.
The Chairman: Gentlemen, we have a standing rule that the committees may not sit when the Senate is in session and the Senate sits in one minute. We do not want to breach the rules here or we would have ``an enduring controversy'' with our leadership.
We fully accept that there was no intention to slight any particular individuals. We also want you to know that everybody we have heard from thus far, understands that there is an enduring controversy, but that enduring controversy is at an academic or commander's level or nation-to-nation level whereas what we have heard from others is that this panel implies that ``An Enduring Controversy'' with respect to morality and usefulness, was at the aircrew level.
Senator Kenny: Mr. Chairman, if they can write different panels, why do we not ask them to write different panels?
The Chairman: Mr. Geurts, can you pick up the points that have been made and those you replied to in your letter of April 25, to the evidence that has been given, and can you have in mind some of these points that I am trying to make, to take this away from implying that the morality relates to the serving airmen. The controversy is at a higher level. If you could do that with respect to changes, then I think that would be helpful.
There was strategic bombing both ways but this panel only relates to strategic bombing in Germany, although there is earlier on in the display, bombing in London and Coventry. The exit panel, the one that visitors remember, beside that photograph of all the dead Germans, that is the one visitors remember and that is the issue that has been brought to our attention.
If you could write to us with any suggestions — we are not here to do your job — we would like you to understand the issue as we are starting to understand it. If you can help us with a way out of this problem, following Senator Kenny's suggestion, of maybe moving this panel to the front instead of the back or doing other things, it would be appreciated.
Mr. Rabinovitch: Thank you for making those observations rather than getting into a text writing exchange. I am sure the subcommittee would not want to get into that.
The Chairman: Absolutely: That is not our role.
Mr. Rabinovitch: We are listening carefully to what you are saying and taking it seriously.
The Chairman: Thank you for being here.
The committee adjourned.