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                          Obama Set to Visit Hiroshima

   by VOA News

   Barack Obama will become the first U.S. president Friday to visit
   Hiroshima, the city where an American warplane dropped the world's
   first atomic bomb on August 6, 1945 during World War II.

   The president has said he will not apologize for the decision then
   president Harry Truman made to drop the A-bomb on Hiroshima, killing
   80,000 people instantly and wiping out 90 percent of the city. Tens of
   thousands more would later die of radiation exposure.

   Obama said recently he knows "as somebody who has now sat in this
   position for the last seven and a half years, that every leader makes
   very difficult decisions, particularly during war time."

   The decision to bomb Hiroshima was controversial.  Several of Truman's
   top military advisers, including future president Dwight Eisenhower,
   objected and favored the conventional bombing already going on in
   Japan.  Truman, however, was seeking a quick end to the war.

   Three days after Hiroshima, the U.S. dropped another atomic bomb on
   Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people with 20,000 to 40,000 more
   dying in the ensuing months.

   ''

   On August 15, 1945, Japanese Emperor Hirohito announced Japan's
   unconditional surrender.

   President Obama will lay a wreath at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial and
   take a tour of the memorial grounds.

   Several survivors of the Hiroshima bombing have been invited to attend.

   Obama said in a statement Thursday in Japan's Asahi Shimbun daily:
   "Hiroshima reminds us that war, no matter the cause of countries
   involved, results in tremendous suffering and loss, especially for
   innocent civilians."

   Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will accompany Obama Friday.

   U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited Hiroshima last month and
   said the memorial there just steps from ground zero "is a stark, harsh,
   compelling reminder,not only of our obligation to end the threat of
   nuclear weapons, but to rededicate all our effort to avoid war
   itself."

   President Obama's Hiroshima visit comes after the annual summit of
   leaders of the world's seven wealthiest nations, held this year in the
   coastal Japanese city of Ise Shima.
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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/obama-hiroshima-visit/3348343.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/obama-hiroshima-visit/3348343.html