The line of hundreds snaked along a concrete path leading up to the iconic monument where Obama had stood as the first sitting United States president to visit Hiroshima since the bomb was dropped on the city on August 6, 1945, in the final chapter of World War II.
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Hiroshima cherishes its survivors – a grove not far from the atomic bomb’s hypocenter proudly displays signs announcing that these “A-bombed Trees” still thrive – but there’s also some skepticism when faced with yet another anti-nuclear call, even from the leader of the world’s sole superpower.
An estimated 140,000 people – including a dozen captured American airmen and thousands of forced laborers from Korea – were killed in the world’s first atomic bombing at Hiroshima. Other presidents before Obama did not venture to Hiroshima because they did not want to apologize for Truman’s authorization to detonate the bomb.
Leave it to President Barack Obama to pick Memorial Day weekend of all times to blame the USA for an act that brought World War II to an end and likely saved millions of lives – Japanese and American.
President Barack Obama visited several memorials dedicated to the bombing with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe before meeting and embracing two survivors.
One of the two survivors who met directly with Obama, 91-year-old Sunao Tsuboi, was more optimistic.
Mr Obama also chatted with a smiling Sunao Tsuboi, 91, who had earlier said he wanted to tell the U.S. president how grateful he was for his visit.
“In the image of a mushroom cloud that rose into these skies, we are most starkly reminded of humanity’s core contradiction”, Obama said. He then gave a plea that the world try to rid itself of nuclear weapons.
The souls of the people who died Hiroshima “speak to us”, Obama said, according to The Washington Post’s David Nakamura.
In a historic moment, the president paid a visit to Hiroshima, Japan, the site of the world’s first nuclear bombing.
“Among those nations like my own that hold nuclear stockpiles we must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them”, President Obama said.
With thousands watching on television, Mr Obama walked forward alone at the park and laid a wreath on a white pyramid.
Obama went on to say “we’re not bound by genetic code to repeat the mistakes of the past”.
Obama’s ambivalent attempt to bring a more complete end to the war that culminated with America’s victory 71 years ago makes it only half successful, and his efforts will likely serve as a new beginning whose end should include an apology by Japan that can be accepted by its victims.
Setsuko Thurlow, a Hiroshima survivor who now lives in Toronto, was 13 when the bomb was dropped.
Standing beside Japanese President Shinzo Abe, Obama made the case for nuclear disarmament.
“That is what is important”, Tsuboi said. Japan quickly surrendered after the atomic bomb that leveled Nagasaki, officially ending the global conflict.
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Obama used the visit to call for a “moral revolution”.
