Video showing Truman's meeting with A-bomb survivors found in U.S. library

INDEPENDENCE, Missouri -- A video showing a meeting in 1964 between former U.S. President Harry S. Truman, who had ordered the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and a group of atomic bombing survivors has been found preserved at a U.S. library, it's been learned.

While justifying the atomic bombing, which he said was necessary to end the war, Truman, who served as president from 1945 to 1953, expressed hope that nuclear weapons would never be used again, the video shows. This was the only occasion when former President Truman met with atomic bombing survivors, or hibakusha. The video was aired on TV only in a limited area at the time and the meeting had not been widely known.

Truman met with the Japanese Goodwill Ambassadors of the World Peace Study Mission at the Harry S. Truman Library Auditorium in Independence, Missouri, on May 5, 1964. The mission included eight hibakusha.

The former president faced Takuo Matsumoto, then 76, spokesman for the mission, on a podium while other hibakusha sat in audience seats. Matsumoto formerly served as head of Hiroshima Jogakuin girls' schools in Hiroshima.

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