Obama expresses interest in visiting Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Many decades after the United States dropped the only atomic bombs ever used in an act of war, sitting President Barack Obama says he wants to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Both cities were devastated by atomic bombs dropped by the United States at the end of World War II.  President Obama stated that he wants to visit both cities sometime during his presidency.  No sitting United States President has ever done so.

Obama told Japanese broadcaster NHK that although he would be unable to visit the cities on his upcoming trip to Japan, he would be willing to do so in the future.  He noted that "The memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are etched in the minds of the world and I would be honored to have the opportunity to visit those cities at some point during my presidency." The interview with NHK was conducted at the White House.

Some Japanese have been calling on President Obama to visit, following his April speech suggesting a nuclear-free world.  His Nobel Peace Prize no doubt adds a bit more impetus to bring some recognition and perhaps closure to the nuclear disaster both in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The mayors of both cities have invited President Obama to visit their cities before a UN review of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty next May.  As expected, anti-nuclear activist groups have been urging the same.

Time may not have healed all wounds, and a visit to either city may not be a political risk that US President Obama would want to undertake.  Sympathy toward Japanese suffering may be viewed as a rebuke to the use of the atomic bombs.  No one doubted their necessity to end the war when the decision was made, and any criticism of it today would be seen as unnecessarily inflammatory to the generation that fought in that war.  After all, it was Japan that instigated the war with the US with its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

President Obama arrives in Tokyo on Friday evening to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.  He will continue on to Singapore the following day to attend an Asian Summit.