Quiet visit to key sites
President: Scientific advances must match moral progress.
hiroshima, japan» Nearly 71 years after an American bomber passed high above this Japanese city on a clear August morning on a mission that would alter history, President Barack Obama on Friday made a solemn visit to Hiroshima to offer respects to the victims of the world’s first deployed atomic bomb.
In the Hiroshima Peace Park guest book, Obama wrote:
“We have known the agony of war. Let us now find the courage, together, to spread peace and pursue a world without nuclear weapons.” In later remarks, he said that scientific strides must be matched by moral progress or mankind is doomed.
Obama’s visit, the first to Hiroshima by a sitting U.S. president, had stirred great anticipation here and across Japan among those who longed for an American leader to acknowledge the suffering of the estimated 140,000 killed during the bombing on Aug. 6, 1945, and its aftermath. That figure includes 20,000 Koreans who had been forced by the Japanese military to work in the city for the imperial war machine.
Three days after the Hiroshima bombing in 1945, a second U.S. atomic bomb hit Nagasaki, killing a total of 80,000, including another 30,000 Koreans. Most of those killed in both cities were civilians. The Japanese emperor announced his nation’s surrender a week later.
On Friday, people lined streets as Obama’s motorcade entered the city. The presidential limousine pulled up behind the Peace Memorial Museum.
In the park, guests were seated just in front of the curved, concrete cenotaph that pays tribute to the dead with an eternal flame burning just beyond it. The Genbaku Dome, or A-bomb dome — the preserved, skeletal remnants of a municipal building destroyed in the blast — was visible in the distance.
National Security Adviser Susan E. Rice and U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy walked out from near the museum, along with their Japanese counterparts, followed by Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Then Obama was handed a wreath, and he laid it on a stand in front of the cenotaph. He bowed his head and stood silently for a minute. Abe then did the same.
“We come to ponder a terrible force unleashed in a not-so-distant past,” Obama said. The souls of the people who died in this city “speak to us,” he added. “They ask us to look inward, to take stock of who we are and what we might become.” The president called for nations to reconsider the development of nuclear weapons and to roll back and “ultimately eliminate” them.
“The world was forever changed here,” he said. “But today, the children of this city will go through their day in peace. What a precious thing that is. It is worth protecting and then extending to every child. That is the future we can choose, a future in which Hiroshima and Nagasaki are known not for the dawn of atomic warfare but as the start of our own moral awakening.”
After the remarks, Obama and Abe walked to the front row to greet Sunao Tsuboi, a survivor of the atomic blast, who stood up clutching a walking cane. Then Obama greeted Shigeaki Mori, another survivor, giving him a hug.
The president and prime minister then walked north toward the dome. Reporters rushing to get photographs of the two got involved in a shoving match with Secret Service agents and Japanese security officials.
Obama and Abe stood together gazing at the dome for several minutes. Abe appeared to be explaining the significance to Obama. To their left was a statue of Sadako Sasaki, a child who died of radiation and became known for her colorful paper cranes, which have become a symbol of Hiroshima’s effort to promote peace.
Obama’s visit was infused with symbolism for the two nations that have evolved from bitter World War II enemies into close allies.
Prior to the ceremony, Obama visited the Marine Corps Air Station in Iwakuni, and spoke to a group of U.S. and Japanese troops. He told them that his trip to Hiroshima is “an opportunity to honor the memory of all who were lost during World War II.” Obama added: “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.”