Media exchange with U.S. Ambassador Rahm Emanuel in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park
Apr. 16, 2022
Media: You expressed your intent to visit the A-bombed city of Hiroshima at an early date. Why did you have the strong desire to visit Hiroshima? Please let us know how you felt after touring the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and the A-bomb Dome today?
Ambassador Rahm Emanuel: I want to answer your question both as ambassador and as Rahm Emanuel, and both responses are quite similar.
I could not be the son of Dr. Benjamin Emanuel, my father, and Marsha Emanuel, my mother, with everything they’ve taught me and the values they’ve instilled in me, if I did not make a trip to Hiroshima early in my tenure as ambassador. I would not think my responsibility as their son is finished until I also go to the city of Nagasaki. To be honest, I felt I need to come back here because I don’t think you can fully absorb what the museum is trying to tell you on a single visit.
Obviously, as ambassador of the United States, it’s important to visit this museum. You may or may not know that I’d asked the Prime Minister that our first visit together be here to Hiroshima, but he could not do it. He did make good on his promise, however, that on his first visit back to the city after cancellation of our previously scheduled trip that I would be his guest and we would come to the museum.
While this visit reveals the destruction caused by war, it also reveals not just the alliance but the friendship between the United States and Japan and the people of the United States and the people of Japan, including the possibilities that exist when two sides hear each other, listen, and then decide to work together, not just on commercial interests, not just on economic interests, but as friends and allies in pursuit of something we jointly believe in and care deeply about, which is the future of our children.
Media: The Yomiuri Shimbun would like to ask a question. Mr. Ambassador, you served as White House Chief of Staff for former President Barack Obama, who visited the A-bombed city of Hiroshima as the first U.S. president to do so. I also understand that you enjoy a relationship of deep trust with current U.S. President Biden. Considering the Ukraine situation these days, both the Hiroshima mayor and Nagasaki mayor the other day requested that President Biden visit the A-bombed cities.
Ambassador Emanuel: Can we hurry? It’s likely to start raining…
Media: Are you considering encouraging President Biden to visit the A-bombed cities in light of what you have learned in Hiroshima today?
Ambassador Emanuel: I don’t want to speak for the president, but I think as a friend, I can say that if President Biden makes it here to Japan, he’ll want to visit one of the two cities, if not both.
The Hiroshima and Nagasaki mayors asked that I help them expand the Mayors for Peace organization. There are a number of mayors of cities in America that have joined the organization already, but the two mayors here in Japan wanted me to try and have more mayors from the United States sign on to the organization. By the way, Chicago is a member city of Mayors for Peace. I told the mayors that I would work with the U.S. Conference of Mayors organization to encourage other mayors in America of all city sizes to become not only members of the Mayors for Peace organization but to actually work in the spirit of achieving peace in the world.
Last question? Go ahead.
Media: Ambassador, being here today paying tribute to the victims of Hiroshima, I’m sure the plight of Ukrainian refugees is very much on your mind especially because you talk about the moral obligation to help Ukrainians as the grandson of immigrants, what more do you hope to see the Japanese government do to support Ukrainians, particularly refugees, in addition to what the authorities have already done? And secondly, you got a little choked up in there talking with the prime minister, why?
Ambassador Emanuel: I bet you all choked up, too, on your first visit. In response to your question, I was just telling the Hiroshima mayor something I read this morning about a Japanese student in Poland, I think it was Warsaw. The woman was in Poland studying abroad and she opened up her apartment to Ukrainian refugees.
I think the question was about what the Japanese government, as well as citizens, can do to open our arms to be responsible and lend a hand to the Ukrainian victims of this horrendous, unlawful, unwanted, unnecessary war.
In the same way, when I opened up the American embassy to Ukrainian refugees as a Jewish person familiar with the events of World War II, in fact with the history of the entire 20th century, I felt we could not sit in a house with many rooms and have them be empty in this worst humanitarian crisis of refugees since World War II without trying to extend a welcoming hand to refugees, individuals and families, in their worst personal crisis. And to the second question, I think you all understand this, but one does not plan on becoming emotional. But as I started to speak, I tried to find the proper words to capture my emotions, but they didn’t really quite capture how I felt.
The reverberations of those images, both the adults but specifically the children, looking at you, haunt you. My feelings were a well of emotions of hurt. To be honest, if you’re not emotional after walking through that museum, you would have to have a hard heart.
Now I want to try one thing. Are you all student journalists?
Student media: Yes, we are.
Ambassador Emanuel: Well, I know it is risky, having been in politics a long time, to ask you for such a question because they are usually the most difficult ones. But, I’m going to roll the dice and ask one of you for a question.
Student media: Do you know the story of the 12-year-old girl named Sadako Sasaki?
Ambassador Emanuel: I knew the story from what I read before visiting the museum, added to what was explained to me inside. Was there something specific you wanted to ask about?
Student media: How did you feel after you heard the story about Sadako Sasaki?
Ambassador Emanuel: Very good question. As we stand now in the shadow of all these cranes and the statue, Sadako’s story serves as a lesson to all of us, but especially to students. Here was one young girl who was quite ill. And her single gesture created a worldwide movement of what it means to make a sign toward peace, and that happened here in Hiroshima.
While the story is an admonition to all of us, it’s also an admonition to you. In other words, you don’t have to wait until you grow up to make a difference and a change in the world.
That journalist over there works for the Washington Post, so you could do an internship with her, and I could write a letter of recommendation for you.
All right everybody, let’s get out of rain.
Ambassador Rahm Emanuel: I want to answer your question both as ambassador and as Rahm Emanuel, and both responses are quite similar.
I could not be the son of Dr. Benjamin Emanuel, my father, and Marsha Emanuel, my mother, with everything they’ve taught me and the values they’ve instilled in me, if I did not make a trip to Hiroshima early in my tenure as ambassador. I would not think my responsibility as their son is finished until I also go to the city of Nagasaki. To be honest, I felt I need to come back here because I don’t think you can fully absorb what the museum is trying to tell you on a single visit.
Obviously, as ambassador of the United States, it’s important to visit this museum. You may or may not know that I’d asked the Prime Minister that our first visit together be here to Hiroshima, but he could not do it. He did make good on his promise, however, that on his first visit back to the city after cancellation of our previously scheduled trip that I would be his guest and we would come to the museum.
While this visit reveals the destruction caused by war, it also reveals not just the alliance but the friendship between the United States and Japan and the people of the United States and the people of Japan, including the possibilities that exist when two sides hear each other, listen, and then decide to work together, not just on commercial interests, not just on economic interests, but as friends and allies in pursuit of something we jointly believe in and care deeply about, which is the future of our children.
Media: The Yomiuri Shimbun would like to ask a question. Mr. Ambassador, you served as White House Chief of Staff for former President Barack Obama, who visited the A-bombed city of Hiroshima as the first U.S. president to do so. I also understand that you enjoy a relationship of deep trust with current U.S. President Biden. Considering the Ukraine situation these days, both the Hiroshima mayor and Nagasaki mayor the other day requested that President Biden visit the A-bombed cities.
Ambassador Emanuel: Can we hurry? It’s likely to start raining…
Media: Are you considering encouraging President Biden to visit the A-bombed cities in light of what you have learned in Hiroshima today?
Ambassador Emanuel: I don’t want to speak for the president, but I think as a friend, I can say that if President Biden makes it here to Japan, he’ll want to visit one of the two cities, if not both.
The Hiroshima and Nagasaki mayors asked that I help them expand the Mayors for Peace organization. There are a number of mayors of cities in America that have joined the organization already, but the two mayors here in Japan wanted me to try and have more mayors from the United States sign on to the organization. By the way, Chicago is a member city of Mayors for Peace. I told the mayors that I would work with the U.S. Conference of Mayors organization to encourage other mayors in America of all city sizes to become not only members of the Mayors for Peace organization but to actually work in the spirit of achieving peace in the world.
Last question? Go ahead.
Media: Ambassador, being here today paying tribute to the victims of Hiroshima, I’m sure the plight of Ukrainian refugees is very much on your mind especially because you talk about the moral obligation to help Ukrainians as the grandson of immigrants, what more do you hope to see the Japanese government do to support Ukrainians, particularly refugees, in addition to what the authorities have already done? And secondly, you got a little choked up in there talking with the prime minister, why?
Ambassador Emanuel: I bet you all choked up, too, on your first visit. In response to your question, I was just telling the Hiroshima mayor something I read this morning about a Japanese student in Poland, I think it was Warsaw. The woman was in Poland studying abroad and she opened up her apartment to Ukrainian refugees.
I think the question was about what the Japanese government, as well as citizens, can do to open our arms to be responsible and lend a hand to the Ukrainian victims of this horrendous, unlawful, unwanted, unnecessary war.
In the same way, when I opened up the American embassy to Ukrainian refugees as a Jewish person familiar with the events of World War II, in fact with the history of the entire 20th century, I felt we could not sit in a house with many rooms and have them be empty in this worst humanitarian crisis of refugees since World War II without trying to extend a welcoming hand to refugees, individuals and families, in their worst personal crisis. And to the second question, I think you all understand this, but one does not plan on becoming emotional. But as I started to speak, I tried to find the proper words to capture my emotions, but they didn’t really quite capture how I felt.
The reverberations of those images, both the adults but specifically the children, looking at you, haunt you. My feelings were a well of emotions of hurt. To be honest, if you’re not emotional after walking through that museum, you would have to have a hard heart.
Now I want to try one thing. Are you all student journalists?
Student media: Yes, we are.
Ambassador Emanuel: Well, I know it is risky, having been in politics a long time, to ask you for such a question because they are usually the most difficult ones. But, I’m going to roll the dice and ask one of you for a question.
Student media: Do you know the story of the 12-year-old girl named Sadako Sasaki?
Ambassador Emanuel: I knew the story from what I read before visiting the museum, added to what was explained to me inside. Was there something specific you wanted to ask about?
Student media: How did you feel after you heard the story about Sadako Sasaki?
Ambassador Emanuel: Very good question. As we stand now in the shadow of all these cranes and the statue, Sadako’s story serves as a lesson to all of us, but especially to students. Here was one young girl who was quite ill. And her single gesture created a worldwide movement of what it means to make a sign toward peace, and that happened here in Hiroshima.
While the story is an admonition to all of us, it’s also an admonition to you. In other words, you don’t have to wait until you grow up to make a difference and a change in the world.
That journalist over there works for the Washington Post, so you could do an internship with her, and I could write a letter of recommendation for you.
All right everybody, let’s get out of rain.
