U.S. Peace Delegation to Apologize to Hiroshima

A delegation of U.S. religious figures and peace activists will mark the 50th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima by publicly apologizing to the Japanese people for the massive destruction caused by the bomb.

“Five decades after the atomic bombings, the U.S. government has yet to issue an apology,” said Jo Becker, executive director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an interfaith pacifist organization founded in 1915 and based in Nyack, N.Y.

The United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and a second on Nagasaki on Aug. 9. An estimated 140,000 people died in the explosion in Hiroshima.

The apology is contained in a letter signed by 7,500 Americans, including a number of prominent religious figures. The delegation is to present the letter to Hiroshima city officials during anniversary ceremonies in the city.

Among the signers are Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning of the Episcopal Church; the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, general secretary of the National Council of Churches; Roman Catholic Bishop Walter Sullivan of the diocese of Richmond, Va.; Kara Newell, executive director of the American Friends Service Committee; the Rev. William Sloane Coffin, president emeritus of Peace Action, and Larry Rasmussen, Reinhold Niebuhr professor of social ethics, Union Theological Seminary, New York.

“President Clinton has stated publicly that President Truman’s decision to use the bomb was the correct one, and that an apology is not necessary,” Becker said. “This initiative clearly demonstrates that many Americans feel differently.”

A CBS News-New York Times poll released July 31 showed that Americans continue to overwhelmingly support the decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan.

According to the poll, 76% of those surveyed said the United States should not apologize to Japan and 58% said dropping the bomb was not morally wrong.

The bombings are credited with forcing the Japanese to surrender and staving off a U.S. invasion of Japan that could have cost tens of thousands of American lives.

In the letter, signers said the apology “does not ignore the atrocities committed by Japanese forces in their march across Asia, nor does it forget the suffering and death of those in the occupied countries, among the Allies, and those in the armed forces.