Obama to become first sitting president to visit Hiroshima

Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama plans to visit Hiroshima this month, the first trip by a U.S. president to the Japanese city devastated by an atomic bomb dropped by an American plane to end World War II.

Obama will pay tribute to the victims of the attack, which killed 80,000 instantly and tens of thousands more by radiation, by visiting Peace Memorial Park, a site that acknowledges those who died, the White House said Tuesday.

“In making this visit, the president will shine a spotlight on the tremendous and devastating human toll of war,” deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said in a statement.

But Obama does not plan to apologize for the deployment of nuclear bombs on either Hiroshima or Nagasaki, according to White House aides, nor for anything else on a weeklong trip that also includes a visit to the former war zone of Vietnam.

Instead, the aides said, the president will be focusing on the future of U.S. relations with these two countries, including on trade and regional security. Talks will also include conversations about the threat posed by North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

The visit comes more than 70 years after an American B-29 bomber delivered the first atomic bomb over Hiroshima. Three days later, the U.S. dropped another atomic bomb that killed an estimated 40,000 people in Nagasaki, leading the Japanese emperor to surrender to the devastation of what he called a “most cruel bomb.”

Nuclear nonproliferation has been one of Obama’s chief goals since he took office. He pursued a nuclear deal to limit Iran’s nuclear program and has worked to press North Korea to engage in talks toward the same end.

Even so, officials said Obama does not think an apology is in order for the devastation of the bombs known as “Fat Man” and “Little Boy,” the only two nuclear weapons ever used in warfare.

The U.S. “will be eternally proud” of those who served in World War II, Rhodes said.

“Their cause was just, and we owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude.”

The stop will be part of Obama’s scheduled trip to Japan in late May for the G-7 leaders summit. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is to accompany Obama to Hiroshima.