Obama's Hiroshima Visit Could Have Unintended Consequences

President Obama's decision to be the first sitting U.S. President to visit the ground zero site of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on May 27th as part of a G-7 Summit visit to Japan comes as no surprise. Advancing the cause of nuclear nonproliferation has been a hallmark of the Obama presidency and is cited as one of the main reasons that he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009. Making remarks in Hiroshima will also provide a platform to re-emphasize his vision of a nuclear free world first enunciated in a speech in Prague in 2009.

But Hiroshima is not Prague. The Czech capital is remembered in Twentieth Century history as the site of the famous "Prague Spring," when the aspirations of the Czech people to be free of communist domination flickered briefly before an invasion of Soviet and other Warsaw Pact troops. Hiroshima, however, is chiefly remembered for the twisted dome of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Hall, burned and melted like much of the city of 350,000, when the Enola Gay dropped "Little Boy", the first atomic bomb used in warfare, on the morning of August 6, 1945. So the historic symbolism of Prague and Hiroshima stand in stark contrast – Prague, a symbol of Cold War resistance and democratic values; Hiroshima, a symbol of atomic devastation brought about by a U.S. B-29 bomber.

And historic symbolism is vitally important. It is said that the victors write history but Americans know from the Civil War narrative of the "Noble Lost Cause" of the Confederacy that this is not always the case. This is no more true that in the former Pacific theater of the Second World War, where continued vigorous debate and heated denials of such war crimes as the Nanjing Massacre and the sexual enslavement of Comfort Women continue over seventy years after the end of the Second World War. Recent reports from a POW-affiliated organization that an elderly POW from the long-ago conflict with Japan would accompany President Obama to the Hiroshima bombing site, meanwhile, have been officially denied by the White House.

Professor Richard Samuels of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Japan expert, told the New York Times on May 10th that "In Japan, I don't think there has been much real evolution, at least among the right wing and the amnesiacs who deny Japan's destructive war in Asia and insist they were the victims…For them, Obama's visit will be a chance to reiterate that they were right."

There is every indication that some on the Japanese side will seek to make use of the Obama visit to score a historic breakthrough, attempting to stalemate White House efforts to finesse a highly sensitive subject. Agence France-Press reported on May 19th that organizations representinghibakusha (atomic bombing survivors) have indicated that they want an official apology from President Obama when he visits Hiroshima. Leaders of the organizations were quoted as stating that "the president should revisit the U.S.'s decision to use nuclear weapons at the end of World War II."