Kiyoshi Tanimoto (谷本 清, Tanimoto Kiyoshi, June 27, 1909 – September 28, 1986) was a Methodist minister famous for his work for the Hiroshima Maidens. He was one of the six Hiroshima survivors whose experiences of the bomb and later life are portrayed in John Hersey's book Hiroshima.[1]
Tanimoto converted to Christianity in his youth, opposed by his Buddhist father. He studied at the Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, Georgia, on an international Methodist scholarship. Ordained a minister at Emory University in 1940, he served in churches in California, Okinawa and then Hiroshima.[2]
On the morning of August 6, 1945, the day Hiroshima was bombed, Tanimoto was outside moving furniture with a friend. Seeing a bright flash of light, he sought cover between two large rocks. Tanimoto, unhurt, ran into the city, and found his family safe. He quickly put himself to work aiding others by bringing water, carrying them to safety, and if there was nothing else he could do, reading them verses from the Bible in Japanese.[2]
Starting in 1948 he went on extensive speaking tours of the US, talking about the impact on the bomb victims and raising funds for his project of a Hiroshima peace center and for the Hiroshima Maidens. Within two years he had given 582 lectures; he then returned to Japan.[1][3] On May 11, 1955,[4] believing he was there for a news interview, Tanimoto unwittingly appeared on a television program popular in the United States at that time, This Is Your Life, where his experience was highly dramatized with sound effects, dramatic music, and actual footage of the city being destroyed in the bombing, as he was asked to walk the studio audience and viewers through the events. He, his wife, and his four children, including his daughter and eventual peace activist, Koko Kondo,[5][6] were placed in the uncomfortable position of meeting with Captain Robert A. Lewis, copilot of the Enola Gay, which dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. At the end, the audience was encouraged to donate to the Hiroshima Maidens.[5][7][2] The episode would later be described as "[exemplifying] a number of the ways in which America comes to terms with...its responsibility for Hiroshima. The first of these ways is Disneyfication, the tendency to view Hiroshima as a dramatic spectacle, an exercise in special effects: the ticking clock, the rolling kettledrums, and the image of the mushroom cloud produce an emotional frisson, and little more than that."[4]
Due to his public fundraising activities, he developed an unwanted reputation as a publicity seeker and attracted the attention of the US and Japanese authorities as a potential "anti-nuke trouble-maker".[1] In 1972, he was interviewed by Thames Television,[8] for the 24th episode of the acclaimed British documentary television series, The World at War. He died in Hiroshima in 1986.[3]
The annual Kiyoshi Tanimoto Peace Prize is named after him.[9]
{{cite episode}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)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.