Reprinted with permission from Greg Mitchell’s newsletter Oppenheimer: From Hiroshima to Hollywood.
Quick post here to report that Trump is getting blowback from his recent reference to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The mayor of Hiroshima, for example, has invited Trump to visit the city after his comments comparing the atomic bombings of 1945 to his own decision to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. “That hit ended the war. I don’t want to use an example of Hiroshima, I don’t want to use an example of Nagasaki, but that was essentially the same thing,” he said.
Of course, for one thing, many (including yours truly) have argued that the atomic bombings did not “end the war” or in any case did not play the most pivotal role.
The remark, in any event, provoked an angry outcry from survivors in Japan who accused him of trying to justify the use of nuclear weapons against a civilian population. One wonders what Trump’s next move would have been if Iran’s leaders had not joined in a ceasefire after the bunker busting with the enormous, if “conventional,” bombs. The U.S. has “small” nuclear bunker busters as well.
From the English-language Japan Times:
“It seems to me that he does not fully understand the reality of the atomic bombings, which, if used, take the lives of many innocent citizens, regardless of whether they were friend or foe, and threaten the survival of the human race,” Mayor Kazumi Matsui told reporters.
“I wish that President Trump would visit the bombed area to see the reality of the atomic bombing and feel the spirit of Hiroshima, and then make statements,” Kazumi said.
Trump’s comments prompted anger from survivors and a small demonstration in Hiroshima. Last week, the city’s assembly passed a motion condemning remarks that justify the use of atomic bombs.
Atomic bomb survivors’ group Nihon Hidankyo won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, and while accepting the prize, called on countries to abolish the weapons.
NHK on the Nagasaki response:
Suzuki Shiro, the mayor of western Japan’s Nagasaki City, told reporters that the use of nuclear weapons is “unacceptable” under any circumstances, given the tragic and inhumane consequences of the 1945 atomic bombings.
The mayor said he does not understand what Trump meant by the comments, but said that if they were aimed at justifying the atomic bomb attacks, Nagasaki would express its profound regret as one of the affected cities.
Suzuki said that against the backdrop of serious international situations, conveying the realities of the atomic bombings is essential, so that people will understand the inhumanity of nuclear weapons. He invited Trump to the city.
I should note that in my new film we are reminded that after the much-covered visit to Hiroshima by Barack Obama – the first ever by a U.S. president while in office – he did not travel on to Nagasaki.
I’ve mentioned previously that my new award-winning film with much of its focus on nuclear dangers today will start streaming, and screening on TV, from PBS on July 12. This week the companion e-book with the same title has been published: “The Atomic Bowl: Football at Ground Zero – and Nuclear Peril Today.” It’s just $5.79 and includes previously unpublished stills and material from the film and much more. Read more here. Thanks.
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Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books, including “Hiroshima in America,” and the recent award-winning The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood – and America – Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, and has directed three documentary films since 2021, including two for PBS (plus award-winning “Atomic Cover-up”). He has written widely about the atomic bomb and atomic bombings, and their aftermath, for over forty years. He writes often at Oppenheimer: From Hiroshima to Hollywood.
