This was not the only way: Obama is right to visit Hiroshima, and right not to apologize for the bomb — but the judgment of history is more complicated

This week, President Obama will become the first sitting U.S. President to visit Hiroshima. To no one’s surprise, critics have charged that the visit will be the latest stop on Obama’s global “apology tour” — but the White House has already ruled out a presidential apology for Harry Truman’s decision to drop an atomic bomb on the city in August 1945.

Obama is right to go to Hiroshima. He is right to go because the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki remain unique in all of history. He is right to...