Former U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy's two-week tour of Japan starting Oct. 25 is a welcome visit ("Japan ties still strong: Caroline Kennedy," in the Nov. 9 edition).
We will not forget her efforts to help bring about President Barack Obama's visit to Hiroshima and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to Pearl Harbor, the largest return of land from U.S. control in Okinawa since the prefecture's reversion in 1972, her visit to Tohoku to encourage disaster victims, and many other acts to help improve the relationship between the U.S. and Japan.
The article quotes her as saying that when she first visited Hiroshima as a college student, it occurred to her that "we all need to try to work for a peaceful world and do everything we can to prevent something like that from ever happening again."
Unfortunately, the world today has a lot of problems, and each country has its own very difficult, complicated situation. And it seems almost impossible to make the world more peaceful.
Yet I remember the vision of Kennedy's father, John F. Kennedy: "Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. ... Confident and unafraid we labor on — not toward a strategy of annihilation but toward a strategy of peace."
We hope that not only Caroline Kennedy but also world leaders share the peace-first strategy and make every possible effort to build peace under all circumstances.
The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.