White House considers visit to site of atomic bombing

Advisers monitoring Kerry’s time in Hiroshima

HIROSHIMA, Japan — For nearly 71 years, the consequences of the world’s first atomic bombing have remained close to the surface here.

Construction workers digging under the Peace Memorial Museum recently discovered the charred and mangled remains of a bicycle, a rice paddle, a toothbrush and a fountain pen, tangible artifacts of a civilization that was buried in ash on Aug. 6, 1945.

The memory of that moment has defined this Japanese city of 1.1 million for more than seven decades, but the ghosts of that horrifying past also have prevented a final reconciliation with the nation that dropped the bomb.

No sitting U.S. president has ever visited Hiroshima, out of concern that such a trip might be interpreted as an apology. The bombing killed 140,000 people but has been viewed by many Americans as a necessary evil to end World War II and save the lives of U.S. troops.

Today, however, there is growing sentiment inside the White House that President Barack Obama should cap his final year with a grand symbolic gesture in service of a goal that remains well out of reach.

No final decision has been made, but aides have begun exploring the possibility of Obama spending several hours in Hiroshima in May, after attending the Group of Seven summit in Ise-Shima, halfway between Tokyo and Hiroshima.

Today, Secretary of State John F. Kerry will arrive in Hiroshima for the G-7 foreign ministers’ conference — the first visit by the United States’ top diplomat — and White House advisers are closely watching his time there as a prelude to a possible Obama trip.

“I think the president would like to do it,” said John Roos, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Japan from 2009 to 2013. “He is a person who bends over backwards to show respect to history, and it does advance his agenda.”

In Japan, anticipation is high ahead of Kerry’s arrival, and officials said the public has long been enamored of a potential visit from Obama. Yet even here, the geopolitics are complicated, in light of China’s rise and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s pursuit of a stronger Japanese self-defense strategy.

Some Abe aides fear that an Obama appearance in Hiroshima would renew debate in the United States over Japan’s imperial past and complicate the prime minister’s security agenda in Asia by forcing him to respond to U.S. campaign-trail criticism and justify his policies. One Abe adviser, in an interview, suggested that Obama delay a visit until after he leaves office; former President Jimmy Carter toured the memorial park in 1984, several years after he left the White House. And Abe himself visited Hiroshima last August for the 70th anniversary memorial ceremonies.

Japanese foreign policy analysts said Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, who was born in Hiroshima and is more moderate than the conservative Abe, is more committed to the disarmament message and to Japan’s pacifist post-war policies.

One Tokyo-based academic who advises Abe said that “no matter how allergic the Japanese have been on the nuclear issue, let’s just face it: On the other side of the coin is the continued commitment from the United States to provide protection to Japan under its nuclear umbrella.”

White House aides say they are confident that Obama can pay respects to the victims of the war — on both sides of the Pacific — without provoking a major political backlash in the United States.

Officials in Hiroshima said that most Japanese would be satisfied if the president were to express empathy and renew his call for disarmament.

“If he comes to Hiroshima, I think the majority will welcome him because we see that he’s trying to move things forward,” Hidehiko Yuzaki, the governor of Hiroshima prefecture, said in a recent interview. “The difference between President Obama and the heads of other nuclear weapon countries is that, of course, the U.S. dropped the bomb. But we’re not expecting President Obama to apologize.”