An emotional John Kerry said Hiroshima’s horrible history should teach humanity to avoid conflict and strive to eradicate nuclear weapons as he became the first U.S. secretary of state to tread upon the ground of the world’s first atomic bombing.
Kerry’s visit Monday to the Japanese city included him touring its peace museum with other foreign ministers of the Group of Seven industrialized nations and laying a wreath at the adjoining park’s stone-arched monument, with the exposed steel beams of Hiroshima’s iconic A-Bomb Dome in the distance.
The U.S. attack on Hiroshima in the final days of World War II killed 140,000 people and scarred a generation of Japanese, while thrusting the world into the dangerous Atomic Age. But Kerry hoped his trip would underscore how Washington and Tokyo have forged a deep alliance over the last 71 years and how everyone must ensure that nuclear arms are never used again.
“While we will revisit the past and honor those who perished, this trip is not about the past,” he told Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, a Hiroshima native. “It’s about the present and the future particularly, and the strength of the relationship that we have built, the friendship that we share, the strength of our alliance and the strong reminder of the imperative we all have to work for peace for peoples everywhere.”
Kerry’s appearance, just footsteps away from Ground Zero, completed an evolution for the United States, whose leaders avoided the city for many years because of political sensitivities.
No serving U.S. president has visited the site, and it took 65 years for a U.S. ambassador to attend Hiroshima’s annual memorial service. Many Americans believe the dropping of atomic bombs here on Aug. 6, 1945, and on the Japanese city of Nagasaki three days later were justified and hastened the end of the war.
Kerry didn’t speak publicly at the ceremony, though he could be seen with his arm around Kishida and whispering in his ear.
The otherwise somber occasion was lifted by the presence of about 800 Japanese schoolchildren waving flags of the G7 nations, including that of the United States. They cheered as the ministers departed with origami cranes in their national colors around their necks. Kerry was draped in red, white and blue.
Hours afterward, the top American diplomat still seemed to be absorbing all that he saw.
“It is a stunning display, it is a gut-wrenching display,” he told reporters of the museum tour, recounting exhibits that showed the bomb, the explosion, the “incredible inferno” and mushroom cloud that enveloped Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. “It tugs at all of your sensibilities as a human being. It reminds everybody of the extraordinary complexity of choices of war and what war does to people, to communities, countries, the world.”
Kerry urged all world leaders to visit, saying: “I don’t see how anyone could forget the images, the evidence, the recreations of what happened.”
Japanese survivors’ groups have campaigned for decades to bring leaders from the U.S. and other nuclear powers to see Hiroshima’s scars as part of a grassroots movement to abolish nuclear weapons.
As Kerry expressed interest, neither Japanese government officials nor survivor groups pressed for the U.S. to apologize. And Kerry didn’t say sorry.
“I don’t think it is something absolutely necessary when we think of the future of the world and peace for our next generation,” Masahiro Arimai, a 71-year-old Hiroshima restaurant owner, said of an apology.
Yoshifumi Sasaki, a 68-year-old, longtime resident, agreed: “We all want understanding.”
Both wished for Obama to follow in Kerry’s footsteps next month.
The president still hasn’t made a decision about visiting Hiroshima and its memorial when he attends a Group of Seven meeting of leaders in central Japan in late May, and Kerry made no promises. During his first year in office, Obama said he would be “honored” to make such a trip.
“Everyone in the world should see and feel the power of this memorial,” Kerry wrote in the museum’s guest book. “It is a stark, harsh, compelling reminder not only of our obligation to end the threat of nuclear weapons, but to rededicate all our effort to avoid war itself.”
“War must be the last resort — never the first choice,” he added.
Wading into U.S. politics, both Kerry and his Japanese counterpart rejected Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s recent suggestion that Japan consider developing its own nuclear weapons to defend itself against nuclear-armed North Korea.
Kishida said, “For us to attain nuclear weapons is completely inconceivable.”
Kerry called such notions “absurd on their face,” contradicting the efforts of every Democratic and Republican president since World War II to prevent wider nuclear proliferation.
Kerry acknowledged that some governments want all nuclear weapons, including those in the U.S. arsenal, destroyed immediately. He described such calls as unrealistic, potentially making the world more dangerous in the short-term by ridding nations of their deterrence against bad actors such as North Korea. Instead, he urged an ordered, methodical process toward the final goal of denuclearization.
“We all know it’s not going to happen overnight,” Kerry said.
But he said, “We have to get there.”
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
Just wondering, has the emperor of Japan ever visited the Arizona Memorial at Pear Harbor and apologized for attacking the United States of America????
My thoughts, also. All that comes out of this Administration is the short sided, “America, did wrong to the world.”. My father fought on a destroyer, defending others, from japanese planes.
I don’t believe Japan apologized to anyone,China, Philippines, and the USA.
I think they changed their history books to eliminate the comfort women of WWII? How many people were killed by Japan and the Nazis because of their efforts to take over the world? HST made a choice. Nuke the Japs to force surrender, or invade to force surrender? Japan had a choice, Surrender before they were nuked once, then twice. They said fight on. If someone attacks Japan now will they not fight back? The Cold War of Europe seems to have moved to Asia with China pushing the envelop. Are nukes desirable? Of course not.. Are they part of detente? They worked in Europe? Chamberlain’s scheme didn’t. I’ll bet they work in the ME with Iran as well. The iranians are not fools. They talk tough but they are the paper tigers of the ME and know Israel would not blink an eye to defend themselves. Israel operates on an eye for an eye, nukes as necessary for a nuke? N Korea is the paper tiger of Asia and like to rattle their rockets?
They should keep Kerry there ankd not let him back into the USA.
kerry being at any military site is an insult to veterans.
America is the only nation ever to drop an atomic bomb on an enemy … we should remind the world of this on occasion. Several loudmouth, evil world leaders need to understand the folly of their actions.
Turn coat
Interesting that Kerry chose the date, since April 9th is the date of the surrender of US forces on Corregidor and the beginning of the Bataan Death March. Then again, the anti-American buffoon that is John Kerry likely doesn’t care.
Kerry was recorded as singing at the memorial ,with a large fecal matter grin on his face
the whole time. He hummed the song for awhile then he broke out singing when the South Korean emperor appeared.
The song? I’m turning Japanese, I’m turning japanese, I think I’m turning japanese, I really think so.
then the putz gave him a 32ounce plastic bottle of Heinz catsup. He later apologised saying that he meant to sing
the song “Walk like an Egyptian” and gift a 8 ounce bottle of catsup because it cost 69% less. He then turned to the rep from IS-IL instructing him that we in the USA have Ice machines that make both kind of Ice; Kracked Ice and Crushed Ice
Merl Haggard’s Song “The fighting side of me” tells all we need to know about Kerry and Obama. That’s all Kerry and Obama have done is to walk on the backside of America.