A White House spokesman said Tuesday it would be "wrong" to view U.S. President Barack Obama's historic visit to Hiroshima as an apology for the atomic bombings of Japan at the end of World War II.
"If people do interpret it that way, they'll be interpreting it wrongly," Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters, in an apparent bid to address opposition by some Americans to the first-ever visit by a sitting U.S. president to the atomic-bombed city.
"I don't think that there's much risk in that," Earnest said, trying to dismiss the view that the Hiroshima trip may anger or displease some Americans who believe the nuclear attacks were necessary to make Japan surrender in the war and save the lives of U.S. soldiers as a result.