http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/singer-kato-urges-us-to-admit-a-bombings-mistake

Singer Kato urges U.S. to admit A-bombings 'mistake'
Wednesday 04th August, 07:05 AM JST

NAGASAKI —
Tokiko Kato, a renowned singer who took part in making the recently released documentary film on a survivor of both atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, said the United States must admit it ‘‘made a big mistake’’ in dropping the bombs in order to realize a world without nuclear weapons.

Kato, who sang a song and served as a narrator of the film ‘‘Niju Hibaku—Yamaguchi Tsutomu-san no Yuigon’’ (Twice Bombed, Twice Survived—The Last Words of Peace Speaker Tsutomu Yamaguchi), a film on the man who died this January at age 93, said that the United States dropped the bombs ‘‘not because it had no other choice in ending’’ World War II but because it wanted to experiment with the bombs.

‘‘By observing one’s own country’s history critically, the United States too can change its path,’’ she said in a recent interview with Kyodo News. Kato, who visited the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum a few years ago to see the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, said she was shocked by the lack of explanations on the extent of the damage it caused to the city and its people.

Seeing some young American people passing by the aircraft, Kato stopped them to tell them about the tragedy it has created, but their response made her think the country has been keeping its dark history sealed.

Kato was also critical of the view that Japan is being protected under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, calling it ‘‘a fiction.’’ ‘‘Japan is merely conducting its foreign policy under such an assumption,’’ she said