On May 27, President Obama will be the first sitting U.S. President to visit Hiroshima. The President’s spokespeople say that he will not offer an apology for the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945 and that he will not make a major speech. Unverified media reports speculate that he may meet with U.S. troops and Japanese self-defense forces in Hiroshima but that he won’t have time to meet with A-bomb survivors. This at a time when the danger of wars among nuclear-armed nations is growing to levels not seen since the Cold War.

Despite committing the U.S. to “seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” Obama’s record on nuclear disarmament is dismal, having supported spending $1 trillion over the next 3 decades to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal. We don’t know exactly what Obama will say or do in Hiroshima (maybe he doesn’t either), but we know what he should do. And while it’s unlikely that the President will act on our demands, it’s very important that we make them, and that he hear them from as many people as possible.

The mainstream media is taking a major interest in Obama’s upcoming visit to Hiroshima, and this is our opportunity to be heard. Please send a message to President Obama: Don’t go to Hiroshima empty handed!

Be sure to read the message to President Obama, which contains important information you need to know. Scroll down to the bottom of the letter to sign and send a message to President Obama: Actions Speak Louder than Words! You MUST meet with the A-bomb survivors!

Please share this alert with your friends and colleagues and urge them to send this message to President Obama.

To: President of the United States, Barack Obama
From: [Your Name Here]

Dear President Obama,

The U.S atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 indiscriminately incinerated tens of thousands of children, women and men in an instant. By the end of 1945 more than 210,000 people – mainly civilians, were dead. Over 90% of the doctors and nurses in Hiroshima were killed or injured by the bomb. The surviving hibakusha, their children and grandchildren continue to suffer from physical, psychological and sociological effects of the bombings. Health effects caused by genetic damage to future generations are still unknown.

Today more than 15,000 nuclear weapons, most of them orders of magnitude more powerful than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, 94% held by the U.S. and Russia, continue to pose an intolerable threat to humanity. Yet no disarmament negotiations are underway or planned.

Last year The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands of its Doomsday Clock to three minutes to midnight citing the “extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity” posed by “unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear arsenals,” and the failure of world leaders to act.

Seven years ago in Prague, you raised the hopes of people around the world when you declared: “[A]s the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act…. So today, I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” But to the contrary, under your leadership, the U.S. is planning to spend one trillion dollars over the next three decades to modernize every nuclear warhead type in its arsenal, and to upgrade and replace their delivery systems – submarines, land-based missiles, and bombers – for the foreseeable future.

As the first sitting U.S. President to visit Hiroshima you have an historic opportunity to demonstrate the moral responsibility you claimed in Prague. To this end:

We call on you to meet with hibakusha and listen to their painful and horrific testimony. Instead of seeking revenge, these courageous hibakusha have dedicated their lives to the elimination of nuclear weapons so that no one else should ever experience the hell on earth they survived.

We call on you to acknowledge that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were immoral and illegal, and to pledge that the United States will never again use nuclear weapons under any circumstances. But these words must be accompanied by bold action. Therefore:

We call on you to initiate without delay a process to negotiate in good faith the early elimination of nuclear weapons, as required by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which entered into force in 1970.

We call on you, as a demonstration of good faith and a concrete interim step, to dramatically reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal and urge Russia to do the same, as use of even a fraction of existing arsenals could cause nuclear winter, resulting in severe climate change leading to global famine.

We call on you to cancel the $1 trillion, 30-year program to upgrade the U.S. nuclear arsenal and overhaul the nuclear weapons complex, and to redirect those funds to meet human needs.

Mr. President: Actions speak louder than words. Don’t go to Hiroshima empty-handed. The whole world will be watching.

Sincerely,

[Sign Your Name Below]