HIROSHIMA, Japan — President Barack Obama paid tribute Friday to the "silent cry" of the 140,000 victims of the atomic bomb dropped 71 years ago on Hiroshima and called on the world to abandon "the logic of fear" that encourages the stockpiling of nuclear weapons.
Obama's trip to Hiroshima made him the first U.S. president to visit the site of the world's first atomic bomb attack.
"Death fell from the sky and the world was changed," Obama said, after laying a wreath, closing his eyes and briefly bowing his head before an arched stone monument in Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park that honors those killed Aug. 6, 1945. "The flash of light and a wall of fire destroyed a city and demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself."
Obama offered a somber reflection on the horrors of war and the danger of technology that gives humans the "capacity for unmatched destruction."
With Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe standing by his side and a bombed-out domed building looming behind him, Obama urged the world to do better.
"We stand here in the middle of this city and force ourselves to imagine the moment the bomb fell," Obama said. "We force ourselves to feel the dread of children confused by what they see. We listen to a silent cry."
Read Saturday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.