Picturing Manzanar : MANZANAR <i> by John Armour and Peter Wright photographs by Ansel Adams, commentary by John Hersey (Times Books: $27.50; 167 pp.) </i>

There could not be a more powerful combination than words by John Hersey and photographs by Ansel Adams. When the subject matter is “Manzanar” and the unconstitutional imprisoning of Japanese-Americans during World War II, the combination would seem to be explosive--and is.

Eloquent and moving, Hersey’s 15,000-word essay details how this tragedy came into being: “The bitterest national shame of the Second World War for the sweet land of liberty: the mass incarceration, on racial grounds alone, on false evidence of military necessity, and in contempt of their supposedly inalienable rights, of an entire class of American citizens--along with others who were not citizens in the country of their choice only because that country had long denied people of their race the right to naturalize.”

Equally moving are Adams’ photographs, originally taken to document life in Manzanar, just a speck on the map in Inyo County in the rugged eastern Sierra before it became one of 10 camps established to hold about 120,000 Japanese-Americans from 1942 to 1945.

Unfortunately, Hersey’s contribution occupies only the first 66 pages. Worse, Adams’ pictures have been culled to less than half of the 204 pictures he donated to the Library of Congress. Many of these historic photographs are reproduced at sizes much smaller than snapshots developed in a hour at your corner photo shop.

Instead of letting Hersey and Adams’ words and pictures tell the story, the book dilutes the saga and turns it into another stereotypical tale of Japanese-Americana: how we overcame hardship and made the best of a bad situation.

The titles of the three different contributions to the book indicate three different approaches: outrage in Hersey’s “A Mistake of Terrifically Horrible Proportions,” irony in Adams’ “Born Free and Equal” and the bland in Armour and Wright’s “A Portrait of Manzanar.”

Now that a redress bill has been passed by Congress and signed by the President, which would grant every living internee $20,000, the horrifying mistake of nearly 50 years ago has been officially rectified. But not the lasting impression that what the government did was wrong. For chipping away at this stone wall the book’s authors and publisher have to be congratulated.

But how much better it would have been for the book to at least mention that Ansel Adams’ Manzanar photos, when put on display after 40 years, were criticized by some Japanese-Americans as “prettifying” the harsh camp experience. Or that many of those photographed carry hidden pyschological scars from the war fought within. Or that most of those photographed have long since died, never qualifying for the $20,000 and carrying to their graves the thought that they were “guilty” as never charged.