Gabbard's Hiroshima atomic bomb post surprises Japan, irks Republicans

SEOUL, South Korea — In a surprise release Tuesday, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard warned of the perils of nuclear weapons.

“I recently visited Hiroshima, and stood at the epicenter of a city scarred by the unimaginable horror caused by a single nuclear bomb dropped in 1945,” she posted on X. “What I saw, the stories I heard, and the haunting sadness that remains, will stay with me forever.”

It is not known when or why Ms. Gabbard was in Hiroshima, the first city ever to suffer an atomic strike, but her X post was clearly not an off-the-cuff remark.

It included a professional-looking 3½-minute video that combined Ms. Gabbard talking with contemporary documentary footage of the bombing, images of the suffering, and animated infographics.

“This one bomb that caused so much destruction in Hiroshima was tiny compared to today’s nuclear bombs,” she warned.

The Hiroshima bomb detonated with the force of 15 kilotons of TNT, she said, while today’s nuclear warheads range from 100 kilotons to one megaton.

She spoke of the potential for millions of deaths from blast and burns; of subsequent “fallout,” or radiation poisoning of air, earth and water; and the risk of “nuclear winter.”

Humanity is “closer to the brink of nuclear annihilation than ever before,” Ms. Gabbard claimed. “Political elites and warmongers are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers.”

What she was referencing was not spelled out, but she has previously claimed U.S. assistance to Ukraine jeopardizes global security by antagonizing Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Russian figures, in both politics and media, have hinted about the potential of nuclear escalation.  

Ms. Gabbard’s tweet may have been a cry from the heart.

Few visitors to Hiroshima leave untouched by the ruins under the detonation’s hypercenter and the nearby Peace Memorial Museum.

In the run-up to the 80th anniversary of the August 1945 nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Ms. Gabbard is hardly alone in her concerns.

In January, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board set the “Doomsday Clock” at 89 seconds to midnight — “the closest it has ever been to catastrophe” in its 78-year history.

A forward-deployed U.S. Forces Korea captain recently told The Washington Times why he was toting a copy of Annie Jacobson’s 2024 bestseller “Nuclear War: A Scenario” — a sobering, documentary-style work about a North Korean atomic strike on Washington, D.C.

“All the generals are reading it,” he said.

In 2024, a bio pic about the father of nuclear weapons, “Oppenheimer,” swept the Oscars. Also that year, the Nihon Hidankyo, Japan’s atomic bomb survivors’ group, won the Nobel Peace Prize for “efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.”

Surprise, condemnation

Ms. Gabbard’s statements sparked surprise in Japan and criticism from U.S. Republicans.

“It is rare for an active U.S. cabinet member to express opposition to nuclear weapons,” opined broadcaster NHK. “It is very unusual,” wrote Japan’s Kyodo News.

“She obviously needs to change her meds,” Republican Sen. John Kennedy told the media site Jewish Insider.

“Many people believe that, unfortunate though it was, the nuclear bomb that was dropped in World War II at Hiroshima actually saved a lot of lives, a lot of American lives,” Republican Sen. Susan Collins told the same outlet.

Commentators on X offered various reactions. One suggested Ms. Gabbard was warning against Iran going critical, another that she was pleading for peace in Ukraine, and another accused her of spreading “Marxist/communist tropes.”

Ms. Gabbard is hardly the only U.S. security official to critique nuclear arms. While countless Allied soldiers were delighted by the use of the bomb to bring about an end to WWII, then-Gen. Dwight Eisenhower was opposed.

“First, the Japanese were ready to surrender, and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing,” he said. “Second, I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon.”

Fleet Adm. William D. Leahy, the most senior U.S. naval officer of World War II and an adviser to President Truman, wrote in 1950, “It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.”