The Japan Times says: “To truly pay homage to those whose lives were lost or irrevocably altered by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, Obama’s visit must galvanise the global community to move without delay toward a world free of nuclear weapons”.
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“We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city”, Truman said as he announced the bombings to the U.S.in a televised address. Obama will lay a wreath at a peace memorial.
Jimmy Carter has visited Hiroshima, but after the end of his presidency.
“I will not revisit the decision to use atomic weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but I will point out that Prime Minister (Shinzo) Abe and I coming to Hiroshima together shows the world the possibility of reconciliation – that even former adversaries can become the strongest of allies”, Obama told the Asahi.
He told the assembled crowd that the world has a shared responsibility to ask how to prevent the suffering that took place in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, the day the United States dropped the atomic bomb on the western Japanese city. The city of Nagasaki was hit by a second nuclear bomb on August 9, 1945, and Japan surrendered six days later.
Three days later, the USA dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki, while the Soviet Union invaded Japan-held Manchuria. He did not apologize for the attack, which is viewed by many in the U.S.as having hastened the end of World War II; others have called it a war crime that targeted civilians.
Obama was set to fly to Hiroshima after the conclusion of the Group of Seven summit in the Ise-Shima area of Japan. In America, people say the war ended early because they dropped the atomic bomb.
“He seeks to give momentum to his retirement agenda on non-proliferation and disarmament by reminding everyone what is at stake, as is vividly and excruciatingly on display in Hiroshima”, said Jeff Kingston, director of Asian studies at Temple University’s Japan campus in Tokyo.
“It’s a chance to reaffirm our commitment to pursuing the peace and security of a [world] where nuclear weapons would no longer be necessary”.
“It’s a testament to how even the most painful divides can be bridged”, Obama said. It declined by about 2,000 since Obama became president in 2009 to a low of 9,920 in 2014, the most recent year available, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Many in the United States believe the use of the nuclear bomb, though devastating, was right, because it forced Japan to surrender, bringing an end to World War Two.
But Abe said he had no firm plans to visit Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii, where Japanese planes conducted a surprise morning attack on a USA naval installation in 1941.
“While we are there, we will see if there is a way for us to deliver our letter of demands to President Obama”, said Shim Jin-tae, a Hiroshima survivor.
Obama extended “sincerest condolences and deepest regrets” over the murder late Wednesday at a meeting with Abe ahead of the G7 summit.
There were also comments from readers who, although they welcome Obama’s visit, expressed mixed feelings about it.
Kinuyo Ikegami, who is 82, came to light incense and chant a prayer.
The Japanese government is already considering an Abe visit to Pearl Harbor, as mutual visits by the two countries’ leaders to sites of such symbolic importance would demonstrate to the world the strength of the Japan-U.S. alliance. Within weeks, Japan surrendered, ending the war in the Pacific Theater.
Obama, who began his administration with an audacious call for a nuclear-free world, acknowledged there still is much to be done.
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The president was accompanied on his visit by Abe – a demonstration of the friendship that exists between the only nation ever to use an atomic bomb and the only nation ever to have suffered from one.
