Obama and Hiroshima: Why Won’t He Face the Atomic Bombings?

Even with diplomatic relations that normally go well, there are some problems that are difficult to approach. With Japan-U.S. relations, the atomic bombings are one such example.

More than 200,000 people lost their lives in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and even now, many others continue to suffer from the aftereffects. From Japan’s point of view, it was an unforgivable, indiscriminate attack, but the U.S. justifies it as an action that was necessary to hasten the conclusion of the war.

These opposing views of the bombings could be called a “historical thorn” that pierces to the core of Japan-U.S. relations, including the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty.

As with any difficult problem, some are trying to remove this thorn, while others choose to leave it alone.

Part of this issue can be seen in a diplomatic cable obtained by the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks. In August 2009, then-Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Mitoji Yabunaka held a conference with U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos in advance of U.S. President Barack Obama’s first Japan visit. At that conference, Yabunaka reportedly said that it was “not yet the right time” for President Obama to visit Hiroshima.

In April of that year, President Obama called for a “world without nuclear weapons” at a speech in Prague. Upon hearing that speech, expectations for a presidential visit to Hiroshima ran high, particularly among people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

President Obama ultimately did not visit Hiroshima, but the U.S. clearly showed great concern. Was it because Vice Minister Yabunaka conveyed a negative opinion? It’s impossible to comprehend.

“Please come here and learn the truth, for the sake of the children, our future.” These were the words spoken by the late Reiko Numada, who experienced the atomic bombing and passed away this summer, in her anticipation of the president’s visit.

This is precisely the message that Japan, as the victim of the atomic bombing, should send out to the world. The role of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is supposed to be to communicate that message.

Of course, even if the vice minister had more strongly recommended that President Obama visit Hiroshima, there was considerable opposition from U.S. conservatives. There is no way to know if the visit would have ever actually happened.

That being said, if President Obama had visited Hiroshima, the question of whether Japan had fulfilled its responsibility to Asia to make amends for World War II might have been raised again, both domestically and abroad.

In either case, the issue had the potential to cause an uproar in the government and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. However, avoiding the situation altogether is not a sound course of action.

By 2008, then-U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi had already visited Hiroshima and laid flowers, while her Japanese counterpart, Yohei Kono, did the same in a visit to Pearl Harbor. With these kinds of efforts already made, if Japan and the U.S. work together to make a presidential visit to Hiroshima happen, they will surely be able to confront the atomic bombings more directly.

This time, a problem caused by a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official’s statement happened to bring about the issue, but at any rate, the message was confirmed once again: This “historical thorn” can only be removed by the government as a whole.