Kerry, Obama and Hiroshima – Please take action!
Recently we sent you a request to contact President Barack Obama on further initiatives to reduce the danger of nuclear weapons, as he advocated in his Prague speech in 2009, and again less than two weeks ago in a Washington Post op-ed.
Today, we have an even more compelling opportunity in the wake of Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Hiroshima’s Peace Park and news reports the president is also considering paying his respects there next month during the G-7 economic summit in Japan.
Peace Action, and our Japanese colleagues, want the president to go to Hiroshima, but not just symbolically. Please contact the president and urge him to visit with Hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors) to learn from their powerful witness, and to take further steps toward nuclear disarmament, including:
-further nuclear reductions in the U.S. arsenal, in concert with Russia;
-initiating negotiations for the verifiable global elimination of all nuclear weapons, as the U.S. and other nuclear states are required to do by Article VI of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty;
-canceling the 30 year, $1 trillion planned boondoggle to completely overhaul the U.S. nuclear weapons complex.
We have some time to build this short-term campaign, and are reaching out to colleagues in the U.S. and internationally. Let’s get it off to a good start with a strong Peace Action response! Please contact the president today, and encourage your friends and family to do the same.
Peacefully yours,
Kevin Martin
Executive Director
Peace Action
[…] On April 11, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry became the highest ranking currently serving U.S. official to visit Hiroshima since more than 150,000 Japanese died instantaneously when the first of two atomic bombs dropped on Japan by the U.S. exploded in Hiroshima. There is speculation that Kerry’s visit will open the door to a possible visit to Hiroshima from U.S. President Barack Obama during the G7 Summit on May 26 -27. No serving U.S. President has ever visited Hiroshima and it took sixty five years for a U.S. ambassador to attend the annual memorial service. Peace Action is part of a national effort to persuade President Obama to visit Hiroshima, but to not go empty-handed. […]