HIROSHIMA, Japan // Barack Obama on Friday paid tribute to the victims of the world’s first atomic bomb attack and sought to bring global attention to his unfulfilled vision of a world without nuclear weapons, as he became the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima.
In a ceremony loaded with symbolism, Mr Obama clasped hands with one survivor and hugged another after speaking about the day that marked one of the most terrifying episodes of the Second World War.
“Seventy-one years ago, death fell from the sky and the world was changed,” Mr Obama said, after laying a wreath, closing his eyes and briefly bowing his head before an arched monument in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park.
The bombing of Hiroshima “demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself”, he said.
Mr Obama said he hoped Hiroshima would someday be remembered not as the dawn of the atomic age but as the beginning of a “moral awakening”.
The bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, claimed the lives of 140,000 people, some of whom died immediately in a ball of searing heat; others succumbed to injuries or radiation-related illnesses in the weeks, months and years that followed.
A second nuclear bomb destroyed the city of Nagasaki three days later, killing another 70,000 people. Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945, ending a war that killed millions.
Mr Obama, however, offered no apology for the bombings, having insisted that he would not revisit decisions made by the US president at the time, Harry S Truman, at the close of a world war.
As an eternal flame flickered behind him, however, he said leaders had an obligation to pursue a world without nuclear weapons.
“This is why we come to this place, we stand here, in the middle of this city and force ourselves to imagine the moment the bomb fell.
“We force ourselves to feel the dread of children confused by what they see. We listen to a silent cry.
“The world was forever changed here but, today, the children of this city will go through their day in peace,” the US president said. “What a precious thing that is.”
Mr Obama received a Nobel Peace prize early in his presidency for his anti-nuclear agenda, but has since endured uneven progress. Yesterday, he renewed his call for a world less threatened by the danger of nuclear war.
“Among those nations like my own that hold nuclear stockpiles, we must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them,” he said.
The US president later greeted Hiroshima survivors, embracing 79-year-old Shigeaki Mori, who appeared overcome with emotion.
“The president gestured as if he was going to give me a hug, so we hugged,” Mr Mori said.
Mr Obama also chatted with a smiling Sunao Tsuboi, 91, who had earlier said he wanted to tell the US president how grateful he was for his visit.
Mr Tsuboi said he was struck by how Mr Obama held his hand and listened carefully. He told the US president he would be remembered as the one who “listened to the voice of survivors like us”.
“You should come visit Hiroshima from time to time and meet lots of people. That is what is important,” he said.
While some in Japan feel the attack on Hiroshima was a war crime because it targeted civilians, many Americans believed it hastened the end of a conflict and saved lives.
Although there had been calls for an apology, public reaction to the visit and the speech was overwhelmingly positive.
“I was thrilled to attend the historic event. Obama is someone who lives in a very different world than I do but I felt his humanity,” said Megu Shimomura, a 14-year-old schoolgirl who was one of the selected guests at the ceremony.
Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe praised the courage of the visit, which he said offered hope for a nuclear-free future.
“An American president comes into contact with the reality of an atomic bombing and renews his resolve towards realising a world without nuclear weapons,” he said.
“I sincerely welcome this historic visit, which has long been awaited by not only people of Hiroshima, but by all Japanese people.”
The pilgrimage drew a less sympathetic response in other North-East Asian countries, where disputes with Tokyo over wartime and colonial aggression are raw.
In a commentary released on Thursday, North Korea’s official KCNA news agency called Mr Obama’s visit to Hiroshima an act of “childish political calculation” aimed at disguising the president’s true nature as a “nuclear war maniac”.
“Obama is seized with the wild ambition to dominate the world by dint of the US nuclear edge,” the agency said.
In Beijing, the government-published China Daily newspaper ran a headline saying: "Atomic bombings of Japan were of its own making."
* Associated Press and Agence France-Presse
