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Obama Makes Historic Visit To Hiroshima Peace Park

HIROSHIMA, Japan (CBSNewYork/AP) -- President Barack Obama arrived at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park Friday on a historic visit to the city where the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe joined Obama the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, where the president signed a guest book.

"We have known the agony of war. Let us now find the courage, together, to spread peace, and pursue a world without nuclear weapons," Obama wrote.

Photos: Obama Makes Historic Visit To Hiroshima

While at the park, Obama also laid a wreath and delivered brief remarks. Abe said Obama's visit to Hiroshima opens a new chapter in reconciliation between the United States and Japan.

He is now the first sitting U.S. president to make the trip that his predecessors have avoided. Some 140,000 people were killed when President Harry Truman unleashed the nuclear weapon in August 1945 in the closing days of World War II.

Obama did not apologize or second-guess Truman's decision, but instead acknowledged the devastating toll of war and encouraged the world to do better.

"We must change our mindset about war itself to prevent conflict through diplomacy," Obama said.

According to a new CBS poll, Americans are divided when it comes to approval of the U.S. using the atomic bomb on Japan during World War II.

Forty-three percent of Americans approve the country's use of the bomb, while 44 percent say they disapprove.

These new numbers indicate a shift in public views over the last decade. In 2005, 57 percent approved of using the bomb, with only 38 percent of Americans expressing disapproval.

North Korea's Korean Central News Agency published a commentary Thursday calling Obama's visit to Hiroshima a "childish political calculation" aimed at hiding the president's identity as a "nuclear war lunatic" determined to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

The commentary also accused Japan of trying to use the visit to masquerade as a victim and cover up its atrocities during World War II.

Local reaction to the president's visit was charged with emotion, CBS2's Jennifer McLogan reported.

At the American Airpower Museum in Farmingdale, Long Island, Erwin Salnick spent his 92nd birthday reliving his role as an Army Air Corps navigator on a B-17 bomber during World War II.

"I dream about it all the time," he said. "I'm still having nightmares."

Some of those nightmares involve Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Together, the two atomic blasts claimed the lives of more than 200,000 people.

Sgt. Bill Kroemer, a retired Navy aviator, said he does not agree with Obama visiting Hiroshima.

"He is saying, 'Well, we're kind of sorry, but I don't want to say it because I may offend a lot of people," Kroemer said.

World War II veterans on Long Island recall Truman struggling with the difficult decision of dropping the bomb or risking countless American lives invading the mainland of Japan.

"The climate (of the world then) was that we were very happy they did that, all the allied guys that would have been killed when we invaded Japan," Salnick said.

"We had to go to war," Kroemer said. "We're protecting us, and in those days, patriotism meant a whole lot."

(TM and © Copyright 2016 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2016 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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