The following op-ed appeared in the San Jose Mercury News on
Saturday, December 7, 1991, under the headline "Fifty years ago,
the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor: Many nations caused World
War II – so who whould apologize to whom?" It was prompted by
what I saw as a misguided effort to assess blame. Many Americans
felt this anniversary was an appropriate time for Japan to issue
a formal apology for what we saw as a dastardly sneak attack
that plunged half the world into war. This led some Japanese,
and some Americans as well, to call for America to apologize for
what they saw as an unwarranted attack on the civilian
populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with weapons of mass
destruction. Both sides had a point, but in my opinion, both
sides also missed the point. Hence this article explaining my
view. This page can be viewed in Romanian courtesy of azoft.
Thoughts on the 50th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor  Martin E.
Hellman  Many years ago when my daughters were small, the
younger one asked the older, "In a civi