U.S. Ambassador Will Attend Hiroshima Memorial Ceremony for First Time
Sixty-five years after the U.S. bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the U.S. ambassador to Japan will attend the city’s annual memorial ceremony for the first time.
Ambassador John Roos will attend the Aug. 6 proceedings, State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said in Washington yesterday. “At this particular point, we thought it was the right thing to do,” he said.
The decision may ease political pressure on President Barack Obama, who’s been invited to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where a second atomic bomb was dropped three days later, said Douglas Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington and a former senior director for Asia at the National Security Council. While a trip hasn’t been announced, Obama may visit Japan in November following a meeting in Seoul of the Group of 20 industrialized nations.
“It means Obama doesn’t have to go on an apology tour and endure criticism from the Republicans,” Paal said in an interview.
The commemorations mark the anniversary of the day the U.S. dropped “Little Boy,” the nickname for the 9,700-pound uranium bomb with the force of 15,000 tons of high explosives. Some 70,000 people died instantly and more suffered fatal cancers, according to a U.S. government history of the bombing.
Nine days later, on Aug. 15, 1945, Japan surrendered to the U.S., ending World War II.
Victims of War
The presence of Roos will “express respect for all of the victims of World War II,” Crowley said.
Japan’s top government spokesman welcomed the U.S. decision in Tokyo. Hiroshima has been sending an invitation to the U.S. president and the ambassador to Japan every year since 1998, according to the city.
“This is the first time a government representative of the U.S., a nuclear power, attends the ceremony, and the Japanese government welcomes this,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku told reporters today. “The event will become an opportunity for major nations’ officials to deepen their understanding of our desire for nuclear disarmament and resolve never to allow the misery of A-bomb attacks to be repeated.”
Roos, a California lawyer and Obama campaign contributor, has served as ambassador to Japan since August 2009.
To contact the reporter on this story: Peter S. Green in Washington at psgreen@bloomberg.net.
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