Nobel Peace Prize goes to anti-nuke advocates

The Norweigan Nobel Committee awarded the grassroots organization Nihon Hidankyo the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. The organization, made up of Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors, has advocated for a world free of nuclear weapons. It has gathered witness testimony about what nuclear weapons did when dropped on the Japanese cities and why no one should ever use them again, the Nobel Committee said.

The nuclear weapons that leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killed a combined 120,000 people with their explosions, the Nobel Committee said. Just as many succumbed later on to radiation poisoning and other injuries, the committee added. Nihon Hidankyo gathered eyewitness testimony from thousands of people who survived the blasts and has regularly called for nuclear disarmament.

Why did the U.S. drop the bombs during World War II? U.S. President Harry S. Truman demanded Japan’s unconditional surrender on July 26, 1945, shortly after he took office, according to the National Archives. Japan ignored his request. Having seen how Japanese soldiers would rather die than surrender during the war, Truman’s cabinet believed a U.S. ground invasion of Japan would cost a massive number of American lives.

More than a week after demanding Emperor Hirohito’s surrender, Truman had still not received a response. On Aug. 6, 1945, the U.S. Air Force dropped a nuclear bomb nicknamed Little Boy on Hiroshima. Days later, it hit Nagasaki with another nuclear bomb. Hirohito surrendered soon afterward.

What else did the Nobel Committee have to say? Soon the world would no longer have living eyewitnesses of the explosions, the committee said, adding that the international community should not forget how people suffered. The committee celebrated that for nearly 80 years no country has detonated a nuclear bomb in wartime.

But committee members also despaired that nuclear bombs were becoming even more powerful, that more countries were making efforts to develop them, and that an international taboo against their use seemed to be weakening. The world should remember that these are the worst weapons the world has ever seen, the committee said.

Dig deeper: Read William Inboden’s column in WORLD Opinions about how the world has entered a new nuclear age.