The car carrying President Obama
has arrived at Hiroshima Peace Park.

Mr. Obama! We're here for you!

It was a historic day for Japan and the United States.

For the first time, a sitting US president visited Hiroshima.

At that moment, two countries came face to face with the painful memories of war.

Why do we come to this place,

to Hiroshima?

We come to ponder a terrible force unleashed in the not-so-distant past.

But among those nations like my own that hold nuclear stockpiles,

we must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them.

Six hundred meters in the sky above Hiroshima, an atomic bomb explodes, burning the city, and its people, in an instant.

And three days later - Nagasaki.

Nearly 210,000 people died in both bombings.

In the US after the war, the bombings were justified by many as acts that hastened the war's end.

In Japan, however, public anger at the inhumane use of the atomic bomb continued to simmer.

I was so angry.

How could humans be so evil?

After the war, no sitting American president visited Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

The divide between the two countries - the one that dropped the bombs and the one that was bombed - was too deep.

It was politically too difficult that a US president would be expected to apologize.

What pushed Barack Obama to overcome the tall walls history had created?

The city that burnt to the ground in a flash: Hiroshima.

71 years since that terrible day-

History reached a turning point on May 27th, 2016.

US President Barack Obama stood on the ground of Hiroshima.

In front of the Cenotaph for the Atomic Bomb Victims,

Obama called for a future without nuclear weapons and embraced a hibakusha survivor.

Vantage point number one.

Miyama Hideaki.

A local TV station chairman who watched the event closely as a member of the press.

Although he had no previous connection to Hiroshima, he lobbied for Obama to visit the city.

What motivated him?

A TV executive and the city that made history.

This is their story.

Obama would not have visited Hiroshima without the work of-

-Miyama Hideaki, chairman of a local TV station at the time.

His daily routine was clipping newspapers.

Hiroshima is connected
to the atomic bomb.

This is a big feature
on North Korea's nuclear development.

Miyama was originally a longtime political reporter for a Tokyo-based newspaper.

He moved to Hiroshima in 2011.

A certain aspect of the city caught him by surprise.

People in Hiroshima
probably don't think about it.

Shops have names like "Peace Garden"
and "Peace Center."

It's obvious to the citizens,
but "peace" is all around the city.

Miyama started a project which evolved into a local movement.

The project was titled "Letters to Obama."

Hiroshima residents wrote letters by hand, urging the American President to visit.

"The US and Japan working together
Like Hiroshima's father and mother"

"You don't need to say anything!
I'm waiting for you!"

I work for the local media,

so it makes sense to do something
unique to Hiroshima.

Still, everybody thought
Obama would never come.

And so, Miyama decided to put his heart and soul into working with the people of Hiroshima.

It all began in 2009 in Prague-

-with a speech that would later lead to a Nobel Peace Prize win.

So today, I state clearly and with conviction America's commitment

to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.

And as a nuclear power, as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon,

the United States has a moral responsibility to act.

It was unprecedented for a US president to accept the moral responsibility of using nuclear weapons.

Barack Obama looked to change that.

Obama puts a lot of importance
on legacy and honor.

Of course, he would want to visit Hiroshima
if given the chance.

Without a doubt.

But things did not go so easy.

Obama made his first visit to Japan after the speech in Prague.

Pay attention to how he answers these next questions from a Japanese reporter.

You talked about visiting Hiroshima and
Nagasaki while in office. Has that changed?

Also, do you still believe it was right
for the US to drop two atomic bombs on Japan?

And considering that, what can be done
about North Korea's nuclear proliferation?

-be honored, it would be meaningful for me to visit those two cities in the future.

I don't have immediate travel plans, but it's something that...

you had one more question?

And I'm not sure I remember.

Was it North Korea?

Obama did not answer whether he thought the bombings were right or wrong.

The delicate issue had long been a wedge between the US and Japan.

The atomic bombs not only killed thousands, but they left survivors with debilitating aftereffects.

That suffering spiraled into heated anger toward the United States.

The man in this photo was one of the enraged survivors.

Tsuboi Sunao eventually became the leader of a group of hibakusha.

We talked to him before he passed away.

I was a kilometer away from the epicenter
when the bomb was dropped.

I walked alone to Miyuki-bashi Bridge
and arrived around 11:30 AM.

I still remember how it felt.

I was alive as I walked
over the bodies of the dead.

I've been discriminated against at work,
as a marriage partner, and more.

If you asked me why, I would answer,
"The atomic bomb." That's it.

Another hibakusha was trying to accomplish something big.

He sent letters to US presidents, hoping he could persuade them to visit Hiroshima.

This is a model of the Hiroshima ruins.

Takahashi Akihiro served as director of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

He was just 14 years old when the bomb hit, leaving his right hand disabled for life.

The bomb stole the future from the children.

It's not a normal death. It's unjust.

That frustration and regret motivate us
to speak up for those who died.

More than anything, Takahashi wanted to prevent another tragedy from happening.

Even without full use of his right hand, he wrote to Obama.

That determination pushed Takahashi to work until just before he passed away.

It was about three days before he died.

He said, "Help me sit up a bit."
I asked, "What's wrong?"

He said there was something
he needed to tell everyone.

I asked, "What is it?"
He said, "I need to testify."

He had been training his mouth
so he could testify when the time came.

The deep rift between the United States and Japan remained for decades after the war, with no change in sight.

Then, Obama made his second visit to Japan.

After the summit, there was anticipation that Obama would make a special trip.

He ended up going to Kamakura, a place he visited as a child.

At the same time, Obama was sending out some important signals.

Three months earlier, a special guest attended the Peace Memorial Ceremony in Hiroshima:

US Ambassador to Japan, John Roos.

It was the first time a US Ambassador to Japan had attended.

Although he remained silent with the media, he did ask Akiba Tadatoshi, mayor of Hiroshima, a critical question.

"If Obama were to visit, would the people of Hiroshima demand an apology?"

Akiba responded that the citizens would not.

The mayor's quick response was because he had been talking to hibakusha groups.

They discussed the issue and agreed to call on Obama to visit Hiroshima.

At that time, Tsuboi decided not to ask for an apology.

Peace is the most appropriate
way of life for humankind.

It took me 20 years to realize that.

I was unable to laugh from my stomach.
I was so full of anger.

But if we can't overcome those feelings,
peace will never arrive.

I said, "We do not need
any apologies from you."

And that included everything in the past.

That was when Miyama began to make his move.

He knew he had to find out how to get the letters from Hiroshima to Obama.

As a newspaper reporter, Miyama spent time in Washington, DC as a correspondent.

Using his connections with high-ranking government officials,

he arranged for the letters to be delivered.

Miyama handed them over with a final message.

I said, "I know President Obama
will be in Japan for a summit in 2016."

"Tell him Hiroshima would love
for him to stop by."

The official told Miyama that it would be more realistic for Obama to visit if the summit was in Hiroshima.

Miyama advised the governor and mayor of Hiroshima that the city should host - but it wasn't meant to be.

Iseshima was announced as the host city.

Miyama kept pushing.

I told them they could fly to Iwakuni base
and take a helicopter to Hiroshima.

They didn't know it was that close.

The summit was in one year.

Obama's time in office was nearing its end.

The clock was ticking.

However, a year passed without any word regarding Obama's Hiroshima visit.

Before the summit, a meeting of foreign ministers was held in Hiroshima.

Among the attendees was US Secretary of State John Kerry.

He took extra time out of his schedule to witness and reflect on the memories of war.

The experience left him with this to say.

Everyone should visit Hiroshima, and everyone means everyone.

So, I hope one day, the president of the United States would be among the everyone who is able to come here.

All of a sudden, news everyone had been waiting for arrived.

The United States continues to be the only country to have used nuclear weapons.

The president intends to visit to send a much more forward-looking signal.

It was a historic announcement.

For the first time, a sitting US president would confront the war-torn history of Hiroshima.

The day arrived.

President Obama lands in Hiroshima after taking a helicopter from Air Station Iwakuni.

The car carrying President Obama
has arrived at Hiroshima Peace Park.

Mr. Obama!

Seventy-one years after the atomic bomb was dropped.

The people of Hiroshima had waited generations for this moment.

We stand here, in the middle of this city,

and force ourselves to imagine the moment the bomb fell.

We force ourselves to feel the dread of children confused by what they see.

We listen to a silent cry.

We remember all the innocents killed across the arc of that terrible war,

and the wars that came before, and the wars that would follow.

Obama approached Tsuboi, the man who decided he would need no apology.

As a hibakusha,

I need to say that dropping the atomic bomb
is one of humanity's biggest mistakes.

In Prague, you mentioned
"a world without nuclear weapons."

We will be there.

"He held my hand until the end,
even if I tried to pull away."

Something arrived for Takahashi, who had continued to send letters until he passed.

This is Mr. Obama's signature.

A thank you letter from the President.

How I wish my husband
were still alive when Obama came.

If his efforts have led us to where
we are now, that would be wonderful.

It's proof that his work wasn't in vain.

In Obama's letter, it was clear the hopes of the Hiroshima people had reached him.

The world listened as President Obama spoke at Hiroshima for 17 minutes.

What emotions drove that speech?

Nobody knows the President's words better than the person who helped write them - speechwriter Ben Rhodes.

They only had two weeks until the Hiroshima visit.

Rhodes spent numerous sessions with Obama, carefully weaving together words for his speech.

The President's visit to Hiroshima came at a time

when many Americans still believed the atomic bombings were justified.

Why did President Obama decide to visit the city, despite the obvious political risks?

One of the people closest to Obama takes us behind the scenes of that historic speech.

Former President Obama's office is in a building not far from the White House.

Ben Rhodes has continued to work with Obama after his presidency ended.

Rhodes has been a close associate of Obama from before his presidential run.

His biggest responsibility is helping form Obama's charismatic words as a speechwriter.

Looking back, Rhodes says writing the Hiroshima speech was a tremendous task.

Well, this speech is a complicated speech because there are extraordinary sensitivities in Japan, in the United States,

and, you know, an audience for every speech.

And those audiences all want different things.

And that's a hard thing.

You're never gonna make everybody be happy.

And you can't try because if you try to make everybody happy, you're not gonna say anything.

You know, I'll sit down with President Obama in the Oval Office, and we'll have a conversation about,

you know, what do you want to accomplish in this speech?

What do you want to say in this speech?

What emotions helped build that memorable speech?

The president-elect of the United States, Barack H. Obama!

44th President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama.

Obama's desire for nuclear abolition has been something he has held on to for decades.

He attended university during the Cold War, when the US and Soviet Union were in a nuclear arms race.

The future president majored in international politics while reporting for the school magazine.

This is one of his pieces.

Hiroshima was already on Obama's mind once he became the President of the United States.

So, even before he took office as president, he had a decades-long interest in issues related to disarmament and nuclear weapons.

And that's one of the reasons why he prioritized it from the beginning of his presidency.

Symbolically, for the arms control and disarmament community,

obviously Hiroshima can send a powerful message to the world about the need to avoid the future use of atomic weapons.

Then, why did it take Obama seven years into his presidency to realize a goal he held onto for so long?

During World War II, Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor took the lives of nearly 2,400 American soldiers and civilians.

The attack brought the US into the war, which included fierce battles in the South Sea Islands that left America scarred.

Daniel Crowley, who the Japanese took prisoner, does not think the decision to drop the atomic bomb was a mistake.

The Japanese guard was executing his prerogative to beat you, even to death if he wished to.

And he seemed to enjoy doing it!

So the point is, it wasn't necessary, if you want to kill large numbers,

to resort to atomic weapons, or even non-atomic large bombs.

The bayonet will do it effectively if you have enough people utilizing it.

The bayonet was not "immoral," when it made a piercing sound,

The bayonet wasn't immorality
as "boom" was immorality.

The war left both countries with wounds that would never heal.

Obama and his team continued to be cautious about visiting Hiroshima.

Five years into Obama's presidency, a specific figure quietly pushed the plan forward.

It was the US Ambassador to Japan at the time.

Daughter of President John F. Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy.

I first visited in 1978 with my uncle, Senator Kennedy, and was deeply affected by our visit to Hiroshima.

I can think of no country in which I would rather serve than Japan.

Caroline Kennedy attended the August 6th ceremony every year and urged Obama to visit.

I must have gotten a phone call or email from Caroline Kennedy once a week for months, you know, leading up to-

She was constantly reminding us, you know, we need to make a decision,

and she was recommending, of course, going to Hiroshima.

So she was a good advocate in keeping this issue in front of people like me and others at the White House.

Obama decided to go to Hiroshima.

And with only two weeks until the visit, the team had to start work on the speech immediately.

Concept: That is why we come to Hiroshima.

If you look at the way this speech is framed near the top, he says, "Why do we come to this place, Hiroshima?"

And then he essentially makes an argument, and then he says, "That is why we come to Hiroshima."

That is the concept that he wanted to use.

Now, his language, he added language here and there.

Forming the opening lines of the speech took the most time.

After multiple revisions by Obama, this is the final draft-

Seventy-one years ago on a bright, cloudless morning,

death fell from the sky and the world was changed.

A flash of light and a wall of fire destroyed a city,

and demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself.

Two phrases stand out:

"a flash of light" and "wall of fire."

Rhodes had always intended to use these in the Hiroshima speech.

And frankly, if you read the stories of the survivors, I was struck by this.

And these are people who survived in different ways.

Someone jumped in the water.

Some of them just managed to survive.

The one thing that everybody remembers is this flash of light.

No matter where they were, the common thing is this light and that flash of light and the wall of fire;

that's striking language.

But frankly, it's language that we took from the stories of survivors and witnesses.

Obama spoke from the heart, with words he hoped would overcome the thick barriers of history.

But among those nations like my own that hold nuclear stockpiles,

we must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them.

The scientific revolution that led to the splitting of an atom requires a moral revolution as well.

That is why we come to this place.

We stand here...

Rhodes looks back on the speech.

President Obama, more than his predecessors,

is willing to not be constrained by political caution and looking at the question of whether or not to visit.

Americans have kind of imposed constraints on ourselves about recognizing this piece of our history.

You can go to Hiroshima and pay tribute to the terrible human cost

and also pay tribute to the remarkable rebirth of this city, led in part by survivors.

We can recognize that humanity,

without having to essentially revisit the questions of American decision making in World War Two.

And that's how President Obama approached-

The deep gulf between Japan and the US remained postwar.

In his speech, President Obama mentioned a Japanese citizen had helped bridge that gulf.

Next, we'll hear from Mori Shigeaki, who was in attendance that day.

Mori, a hibakusha survivor, searched for the families of US soldiers that died in the Hiroshima bombing.

After Obama finished his speech, the two embraced.

That image symbolizes a historical moment - and a day we will never forget.

Mori Shigeaki's work had gone nearly unnoticed for 40 years until Obama came to Hiroshima.

Now, his name can be found in Japanese textbooks.

Nobody knew who I was until
the day before the President's visit.

I was just a regular hibakusha citizen.

For the next three days,
I had no time for a proper meal.

My phone kept ringing.
The media wouldn't stop.

On that day, the course of history changed because of Mori's quiet persistence.

To understand what drove Mori, a certain truth must be known about the tragic bombing of Hiroshima.

In addition to the Japanese that died that day,

the bomb also took the lives of many Koreans and 12 American soldiers.

The American soldiers were prisoners of war being held in Hiroshima.

Mori couldn't believe it when he learned the bodies had been found at an elementary school he had attended.

I had just transferred schools.

I don't remember why,
but it saved my life.

If I had still been attending classes
at my previous school,

I would have met the same fate
as the American soldiers.

That thought stayed with me.

After 30 years,
I started to think about it again.

I looked for information
about the American soldiers.

When he wasn't working his regular job,

Mori searched for information about the Americans who had died - all on his own.

He quickly learned the 12 soldiers were crew members on a fighter plane shot down by Japan.

But in the United States, there seemed to be no public information about the Americans who died in the bombing.

Decades passed and nobody knew about
the US soldiers that died in the bombing.

Not even their families.

I knew I had to do something.
At least reach out to the bereaved families.

Mori sent letters to the US government in search of the bereaved families.

To his surprise, the Department of the Army replied.

With only their names and an interpreter by his side, Mori called each number one by one.

I didn't tell my family what I was doing.

My wife would see the monthly phone bill
rise to almost 70,000 yen.

It put her in a bad mood.
She told me to stop.

And I did. But after a while,
I went back to work.

Mori and those American families shared the same grief of losing someone to the atomic bomb.

That motivated Mori to never give up.

It took him nearly 20 years to get in contact with bereaved family and friends.

One American prisoner died here.

He was buried with respect.

At the local TV station, Miyama heard of Mori's work.

He traveled to Washington to inform US government officials about Mori's activities.

If I got this to the White House,
it might help get the President to Hiroshima.

The day came.

Mori was one of only about 100 people at the flower dedication ceremony.

The US government invited Mori after learning what he had done.

Why do we come to this place,

to Hiroshima?

We come to ponder a terrible force unleashed in the not-so-distant past.

We come to mourn the dead, including over a hundred thousand Japanese men,

women and children, thousands of Koreans, a dozen Americans held prisoner.

The man who sought out families of Americans killed here

because he believed their loss was equal to his own.

The President was talking about Mori.

I was watching from the closest seat.
I heard it clearly.

He mentioned,
"A dozen Americans held prisoner."

He was talking about what I did.

That filled my heart up so much.

I was so moved.

It was a crucial moment.
I needed to be able to listen and talk.

But I kept crying. My mind went blank.

Still, at that moment, the President
looked at me, saw my tears,

and put his long arms around me.

I had struggled for so long,
but it was all worth it.

The US government recognized what I had done.

The President came to Hiroshima.

I was so happy.

Mori had indeed changed the course of history.

Their smiles speak volumes about what that meant.

Seven years since Obama's visit to Hiroshima.

Russia has invaded Ukraine and threatened to use nuclear weapons.

At the same time, North Korea has continued to launch missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

Humanity still has no roadmap for nuclear abolition.

Obama folded this paper crane!

What can we do?

It all starts by visiting places where the scars of history remain,

and learning about the tragedies firsthand.