Barack Obama on Friday became the first sitting U.S. president to visit the site of the world’s first atomic bomb attack, bringing global attention both to survivors and to his unfulfilled vision of a world without nuclear weapons.
Obama arrived in Hiroshima, accompanied by Caroline Kennedy, ambassador to Japan and the daughter of the 35th U.S. president. He came after addressing U.S. and Japanese troops at nearby Marine Corps station and attending G7 summit in Shima, Japan.
The visit presents a diplomatic tightrope for a U.S. president trying to make history without ripping open old wounds. Obama planned to make a short speech and pay tribute to the 140,000 people killed in the bombing seven decades ago. But the White House has stressed he will 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.
The president also is expected to renew his push for a world without nuclear weapons, an aspiration for which he received a Nobel Peace Prize early on his presidency but has since seen uneven progress.
U.S. President Barack Obama is to be accompanied at the centopath by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Obama and Abe are seen in this photo Thursday at the G7 summit. (Ma Ping/Reuters)
The White House has said Obama will offer a simple reflection, acknowledging the devastating toll of war and coupling it with a message that the world can — and must — do better.
Here, at this place of so much suffering, where U.S. forces dropped the bomb that gave birth to the nuclear age, Obama will also place a wreath at the centopath, an arched monument in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park honouring those killed on Aug. 6, 1945. A second atomic bomb, dropped on Nagasaki three days later, killed 70,000 more.
The president is to be accompanied on his visit by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo 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.
Carter visited after leaving office
Obama’s visit is a moment 71 years in the making. Other American presidents considered coming, but the politics were still too sensitive, the emotions too raw. Jimmy Carter visited as a former president in 1984.
Even now, when polls find 70 per cent of the Japanese support Obama’s decision to come to Hiroshima, Obama’s visit is fraught.
His choreographed visit will be parsed by people with many agendas.
There are political foes at home who are ready to seize on any hint of an unwelcome expression of regret.
Police officers stand guard atop of a building before arrival of U.S. President Barack Obama at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and Museum in Hiroshima, Japan May 27, 2016. REUTERS/Toru Hanai – RTX2EFID (REUTERS)
There are Koreans who want to hear the president acknowledge the estimated 20,000-40,000 of their citizens who were among the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
There are blast survivors who want Obama to listen to their stories, to see their scars — physical and otherwise.
There are activists looking for a pledge of new, concrete steps to rid the world of nuclear weapons.
There are American former POWs who want the president to fault Japan for starting the war in the Pacific.
Obama will try to navigate those shoals by saying less, not more.
“I’m coming, first and foremost, to remember and honour the tens of millions of lives lost during the Second World War. Hiroshima reminds us that war, no matter the cause or countries involved, results in tremendous suffering and loss, especially for innocent civilians,” Obama said in written responses to questions published in the Asahi newspaper on Friday.
“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.