G7 ministers visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, including John Kerry, who has become the first U.S. Secretary of State to do so. Rough cut (no reporter narration).
NATURAL ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION) John Kerry on Monday (April 11) became the first U.S. secretary of state to pay his respects at Hiroshima's memorial to victims of the 1945 U.S. nuclear attack, raising speculation that U.S. President Barack Obama might visit in May. He was accompanied by foreign ministers of the Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies. The ministers from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States laid wreaths at a cenotaph to the victims of the August 6, 1945 bombing, which reduced the city to ashes and killed some 140,000 people by the end of that year. After a moment of silence by the ministers, Japanese school children presented them with paper cranes, symbolising peace, in each country's national colours. Three days after a U.S. warplane dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, another atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Japan surrendered six days later. A visit could be controversial in America if it were viewed as an apology. A majority of Americans still view the bombings as justified to end the war and save U.S. lives, while the vast majority of Japanese believe it was not justified. While he is not the highest-ranking U.S. official to have toured the museum and memorial park, a distinction that belongs to then-U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi in 2008, Kerry is the senior-most executive branch official to visit.