Hiroshima: The dreaded invitation

Obama declines offer to visit the bombed city on his first trip to East Asia

Schoolchildren in Japan visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. President Obama may visit someday, but not during this trip. (Blaine Harden/the Washington Post)
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By Blaine Harden

Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, November 13, 2009

HIROSHIMA, JAPAN -- An inconvenient invitation awaits President Obama when he lands Friday in Japan. It's one that no sitting U.S. president has accepted and that Obama's tight schedule in Japan cannot accommodate./.../

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Yet many Japanese have been talking about the invitation