Ryohei Murata was the Japanese ambassador to the United States from 1989 to 1992, and I would like many people, especially Americans, to know what he wrote in his memoirs about the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
After describing the dropping of A-bombs and carpet-bombing of Tokyo and other Japanese cities in 1945 as “obvious violation of the international law,” he continues as follows: “Unless the U.S. President express regret, we Japanese will never forgive those crimes by the U.S. in our hearts, and I will continue to consider that Americans have a fundamental defect in their national character.”
To be frank, I cannot but agree with him. As far as I understand, besides the Holocaust, there were no more serious war crimes committed in World War II than those by the U.S. on Japanese civilians in that they were highly organizational, well-planned and extremely cruel.
Some may argue that Japan and the U.S. should be forward-looking and future-oriented, but I feel hesitant when I think of those who were annihilated by the U.S. at the final stage of World War II.
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.