US President Barack Obama stands after laying a wreath at Hiroshima Memorial Cenotaph in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, Hiroshima, Hiroshima Prefecture, western Japan, May 27, 2016.
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The president went on to meet a number of survivors of the 1945 bombing, among them Sunao Tsuboi, 91, and Shigeaki Mori, 79, who shed tears as they embraced.
While the president was in Japan, he laid a wreath at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. “Artifacts tell us that violent conflict appeared with the very first man. Our early ancestors having learned to make blades from flint and spears from wood, used these tools not just for hunting but against their own kind”, he said.
Hundreds of atom bomb survivors live in California and for many of them, the President’s historic visit brought back memories of that day.
As many observers and US local media have pointed out, with the end of Obama’s last term in office approaching in January 2017, he hopes to cement his legacy as an advocate of nuclear disarmament by claiming the title of the first sitting USA president to visit Hiroshima.
JUDY WOODRUFF: We will look at the nuclear threat in the world today after the news summary.
In Japan, Pearl Harbor is not seen as a parallel for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but as an attack on a military installation that did not target civilians.
“We must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without (nuclear weapons)”, Obama said during his Friday speech. “I know some people were against it, I know some Americans were against it, but that was a job we had to do”.
“I told him to firmly study what exactly nuclear weapons are”, he said, adding that he appreciated Obama’s visit. It was a nod to advocates for both groups who had publicly warned the president not to forget about them in Hiroshima.
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.
“It is worth focusing on Hiroshima, but it’s even more important that we should not forget Nanjing”, said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. “I could understand what he wanted to say by his expression”.
Richard Nixon visited in April 1964, four years before he became President and after serving as Dwight Eisenhower’s vice president.
Obama reportedly met with survivors of the blasts.
Ishikawa volunteered to join the Army while he and his family were interned in the U.S. Government’s Tule Lake concentration camp.
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“When you have the weapon to win the war, you’d be foolish if you didn’t use it”, President Truman said in 1945.
