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ByNancyBenac The Associated Press WASHINGTON Eager to heal old wounds and galva- nize new generations, Pres- ident Barack Obama this month will become the first sitting American president to visit Hiroshima, where seven decades ago the U.S. dropped the devastating atomic bomb that ushered in the nuclear age. By visiting the peace park near the epicenter of the 1945 attack, the presi- dent hopes to reinvigorate efforts worldwide to elimi- nate nuclear weapons. But in a sign of the extraordi- nary political sensitivities attached to the gesture, the White House is going out of its way to stress Obama will not come bearing an apol- ogy. Deputy national secu- rity adviser Ben Rhodes said flatly: "He will not re- visit the decision to use the atomic bomb at the end of World War II." Instead, Rhodes said in a statement, Obama will spotlight the toll of war and offer a "for- ward-looking vision" of a non-nuclear world. Japanese Prime Minis- ter Shinzo Abe, who will accompany Obama on the visit, said no apology is ex- pected — or necessary. "The prime minister of the world's only nation to have suffered atomic at- tacks, and the leader of the world's only nation to have used the atomic weapons at war will together pay re- spects for the victims," Abe told reporters. "I believe that would be a way to re- spond to the victims of the atomic bombings and the survivors who are still in pain." The U.S. attack on Hi- roshima on Aug. 6, 1945, killed 140,000 people. A second bomb, dropped on Nagasaki three days later, killed 70,000. The bombings scarred generations of Jap- anese, both physically and mentally, but many Ameri- cans believe they hastened the end of World War II and saved countless other lives. Japan announced it would surrender on Aug. 15. As for Obama's visit, the Japanese people are ready for this moment, seven de- cades in the making. In a NHK television poll this month, 70 percent of Japanese respondents said they wanted Obama to visit, compared to 2 percent against it. Survivors, especially, have long been waiting. The number of survivors who are recognized as "hibaku- sha" and entitled to medi- cal assistance from the Jap- anese government was more than 183,000 as of March. Their average age is now over 80. "The day has finally come," said 91-year-old Su- nao Tsuboi, a survivor of the bombing and head of a sur- vivors group in the western Japanese city. "We are not asking for an apology," Tsuboi told NHK. "All we want is to see him lay flowers at the peace park and lower his head in si- lence. This would be a first step toward abolishing nu- clear weapons." The president's visit, at the end of a previously an- nounced trip to Japan and Vietnam, has been widely anticipated since Secretary of State John Kerry went to the Hiroshima memorial in April. Hiroshima Mayor Ka- zumi Matsui praised Obama's plan as a "bold de- cision based on conscience and rationality" and said he hopes the president will listen to survivors' stories. Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue said the president would "send a powerful message, in his own words, toward achieving a world without nuclear weapons." Obama's call for a nu- clear-free world echoes the message delivered by for- mer President Jimmy Carter when he visited Hiroshima in 1984 and pledged to work as a private citizen "to elim- inate nuclear weapons from the face of the earth." For all of the symbolism associated with Obama's visit, anti-nuclear groups said a powerful presidential message was not enough: The president who delivered a stirring call for a nuclear- free world in a Prague ad- dress during the first year of his presidency needs to use his last year to take more specific steps, they said. ATOMIC BOMBING SITE Eager to heal old wounds, Obama to visit Hiroshima JACQUELYNMARTIN—THEASSOCIATEDPRESSFILE President Barack Obama speaks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during their meeting at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, D.C. Select"Subscribe"tabin lower right corner Complete information for automatic weekly delivery to your email inbox That's it! FREE online subscription to TV Select Magazine Digital edition emailed to you, every Saturday! Just go online to www.ifoldsflip.com/t/5281 (You'll only need to go there one time) • Fully searchable online, zoom in, print out pages and more! • No newspaper online subscription or website access required. • Best of all ... it's ABSOLUTELY FREE! This FREE service made possible by the advertisers in TV Select Magazine Kindly patronize and thank them. Click on their ads online to access their websites! WEDNESDAY, MAY 11, 2016 REDBLUFFDAILYNEWS.COM | NEWS | 5 B