Koko Tanimoto (Née Koko Kondo (近藤紘子, Kondō Kōko), born November 20, 1944[1]) is a prominent atomic bomb survivor, peace activist, and the eldest of at least four children of Kiyoshi Tanimoto,[2]aMethodist minister famous for his work for the Hiroshima Maidens.[3] Both appear in John Hersey's book Hiroshima.
On May 11, 1955,[4] her immediate family, including 10-year-old Koko and her father, Kiyoshi,[5] unwittingly appeared on a television program popular in the United States at that time, This Is Your Life, where they were placed in the uncomfortable position of meeting with Captain Robert A. Lewis, copilot of the Enola Gay, which dropped the first atomic bombonHiroshima.[2][6]
Kondo has espoused global peace in such places as Iraq, and speaks frequently at American UniversityinWashington, D.C., her alma mater. Kondo regularly accompanies both Japanese and international students, mostly Americans, from her alma mater, on a peace study tour throughout Japan focusing on the atomic bomb.
When she was living in the United States, she lived with Nobel Prize winner Pearl S. Buck, who greatly influenced her personal work with Japanese orphans.
Kondo received an honorary degree from Webster University in 2014.[7]
1944年11月20日広島生まれ。(Born November 20, 1944 in Hiroshima.)
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S3, Ep32... Rev. Kiyoshi Tanimoto... 11 May 1955
At the age of 10, she had her shot. On a moment's notice Kondo's mother took her and her siblings to Los Angeles, where they were whisked to a television studio. Tanimoto, a Methodist minister who had gained a bit of notoriety from his role in the book, was to be featured on the television show, This Is Your Life. Standing in a corner next to the stage was a man young Koko had never seen before, yet one who had impacted her life profoundly. "I asked my mother, 'Who is that guy?'" she recalls. "She said, 'He's Captain Robert Lewis.'"
Reverend Tanimoto turns up at the [NBC] station [in Los Angeles], and it turns out he's not doing a news interview; he has been booked unwittingly on an episode of This Is Your Life.... In this case, they were bringing out people from reverend Tanimoto's life... including one of the bombers from the Enola Gay. And so, poor reverend Tanimoto, he's sitting there on the set and trying to maintain his composure, and the set is full of bells and whistles. They have the sound of the bomb whirring. They have the sound of the clock ticking. It's just this highly produced dramatic production, and this poor reverend is sitting there totally bewildered but trying so hard to stay composed. And the moment where they bring out the bomber to shake hands, I mean, you can't even imagine what's going through Tanimoto's mind. And Hersey would report on this later on, and he said that the bomber (Captain Robert A. Lewis) appeared to be crying, to many millions of viewers who were watching this, but in reality Hersey reported it turned out that he had been out bar-hopping beforehand.
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