U.S. attends Hiroshima ceremonies for the first time

Hundreds attended a ceremony commemorating the 65th anniversary of the first atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima.
Children sang songs and bells rang to mark the moment the bomb was dropped.
74 nations were present to honor those killed. The date is remembered every year with a somber ceremony, but this year, for the first time, representatives from the U.S., Great Britain and France were in attendance.
The ceremony focused on moving toward a goal of a nuclear-free world."A world free of weapons of mass destruction - that is the only safe path to a safer world," said Ban Ki-Moon, the UN Secretary General.
This is a shift from the normal argument of whether the use of the atomic bomb was justified to end the Pacific front of World War II.
Both arguments have raged back to the moment the bomb was dropped in August of 1945. One of the first articles to predict the fear that would dominate the public consciousness in the decades following appeared just 12 days after the bombing of Hiroshima.
The memorials and ceremonies are over for another year, but the debates over proliferation and the justification of the use of nuclear force will be with us as long as the memory of the more than 140,000 killed in the blast 65 years ago today.