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The grandson of former U.S. President Harry Truman, who authorized the atomic bombing of Japan during World War II, visited Hiroshima Saturday before the 67th anniversary of its devastation.<\/p>\n
Clifton Truman Daniel, 55, toured the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and offered a silent prayer for victims of the 1945 wartime nuclear bombing, press reports said.<\/p>\n
He was the first Truman relative to attend the anniversaries of the bombings of Hiroshima on Aug 6 and Nagasaki three days later.<\/p>\n
After visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, the former U.S. president\u2019s eldest grandson told reporters he was struck most by the \u201cmessage of peace the entire city is devoted to,\u201d according to Kyodo news agency.<\/p>\n
Tens of thousands of people attend services every year to remember the more than 200,000 people estimated to have died in the bombings, either instantly or later from burns and radiation sickness.<\/p>\n
On Friday, Truman met A-bomb survivors in Tokyo, calling it \u201ca good first step toward healing old wounds.\u201d<\/p>\n
Truman, a former journalist who was invited by an anti-nuclear group, talked with a handful of survivors and students at a Tokyo University forum.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe meeting was great,\u201d Daniel told reporters following the two-hour conversation during which he mainly listened to survivors who are now in their 70s and 80s.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most impressive thing is that survivors and students and all of us can come together and talk, and they can share their stories,\u201d said Daniel, who lives in Chicago.<\/p>\n
In a separate interview with AFP, Daniel added that \u201cit\u2019s a good first step toward healing old wounds. We are looking at this\u2026 as a good first step to talk and to better understand each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
The survivors who attended the forum generally welcomed Daniel\u2019s visit. \u201cIt\u2019s good to meet the grandson of Mr Truman as we have not had a chance to meet him before,\u201d said Nobuo Miyake, 83, who survived the Hiroshima bombing and now lives in Tokyo.<\/p>\n
Kohei Koba, another male survivor, 79, said: \u201cSince he is a grandson, he has no direct responsibility. Rather, I felt as if I met a distant relative.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Reiko Yamada, a 77-year-old female survivor, said: \u201cI would like him to know that some of those who lost their family members in the bombings will never forgive (the United States) no matter what.\u201d<\/p>\n
Masashi Ieshima, another survivor in his 70s, said: \u201cI\u2019m not sure we could have sufficient communication in such a limited time. I hope he will learn about the real tragedy when he visits Hiroshima and Nagasaki.\u201d<\/p>\n
During his stay in Japan, Daniel is scheduled to hold talks with the mayors of the two cities and meet more survivors of the bombings.<\/p>\n
Asked if he plans to publicly express his sympathy to survivors, Daniel said only: \u201cI certainly can feel terrible for what happened to them. It\u2019s obviously a difficult subject.\u201d<\/p>\n
While opinions remain divided over whether atomic bombs were necessary to end the war, Daniel defended his grandfather, who ordered their use after Japan refused to surrender.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t second-guess my grandfather\u2026 (but) there is no right decision in war,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy grandfather always said that he made that decision to end the war quickly. That\u2019s what he believed. He was horrified by the destruction caused by those weapons and dedicated the rest of his presidency trying to make sure that it didn\u2019t happen again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope that I can do the same, to work to hopefully rid the world of nuclear weapons,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Photo by: AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The grandson of former U.S. President Harry Truman, who authorized the atomic bombing of Japan during World War II, visited Hiroshima Saturday before the 67th anniversary of its devastation. Clifton Truman Daniel, 55, toured the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and offered a silent prayer for victims of the 1945 wartime nuclear bombing, press reports said. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=747"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":748,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747\/revisions\/748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}