Author
Kathleen Egan
Senior Program Associate, Carnegie Council
Seldom does one encounter a leader with a clarity of message, identity, and worldview that is firmly grounded in lived experience. I had the extraordinary opportunity to meet such a leader—also an international peace advocate and atomic bomb survivor—Koko Kondo.
Last November I traveled to Japan as part of the Uehiro-Carnegie Endowment for Future Generations Study Tour. Part of the itinerary included a day in Hiroshima with a visit to the Peace Memorial Museum and the Atomic Bomb Dome. The day concluded with dinner and discussion, where I met Koko for the first time. This April I had the distinct honor to reciprocate the hospitality and welcome Koko to Carnegie Council in New York City. The two receptions led to deep and meaningful conversation and connection. Here is what I learned:
Koko Kondo displaying the shirt she was wearing on August 6, 1945 to the Carnegie Council delegation, November 2025. CREDIT: Carnegie Council.
About Koko Kondo’s Story
Koko is a hibakusha, a Japanese term designated for surviving victims of the atomic bombs which fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She was just eight months old when the bomb was dropped on her hometown of Hiroshima. Her father, Kiyoshi Tanimoto, a Methodist minister, worked with journalist John Hersey and greatly informed the paradigm-changing book Hiroshima. Hersey famously, as Koko tells it, misgendered her in his retelling of events of August 1945. During our reception, Koko was quick to turn to page 41 of Hiroshima to check to see which edition we had displayed at Carnegie Council. Later editions of the cornerstone book have since been corrected to read “a young girl survived.”
At age 10, Koko and her family traveled to the United States and appeared on the NBC television show This is Your Life. During the filming, Robert A. Lewis, the co-pilot of the Enola Gay plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, was also interviewed.
As Koko tells it, as a little girl she thought that upon meeting the pilot she would want to give him “a punch or a kick or a bite.” Instead, she was struck by Lewis’ pain and regret. Seeing Lewis’ emotions during the show, she thought, “monsters don’t have tears.” Though she could not speak to him in English, Koko was able to hold his hand and, in that moment, forgave him. “That’s the moment I learned I should not hate the enemy. I should hate the war itself,” she said. “That’s how I changed.”
About Moral Courage
Notwithstanding the profound encounter with Robert A. Lewis, Koko’s journey from atomic bomb survivor to international peace advocate proved gradual. She spent her early adult life studying in the United States, at American University, and not openly discussing her past. As Koko describes, it was not until she was in her 40s and her father was retiring that she took up the mantle of advocacy and peace.
In post-war Japan, atomic bomb survivors experienced widespread stigma and discrimination on top of the lasting health effects of radiation exposure. Though Koko does not linger on this topic, understanding the domestic social-political context is essential. To publicly identify as a survivor had and continues to have consequences. To then turn that identity not into grievance but into advocacy makes Koko even more remarkable. It is a leadership defined by moral courage.
In her presence, Koko, with her quick wit and sense of humor, puts those around her at ease. She explained that though she delivers keynote remarks and meets with world leaders, including recently at the Vatican with Pope Leo XIV, her path was winding, not linear. Finding her voice, whether condemning President Trump’s flippant remarks about restarting nuclear testing or meeting with school children, was a life-long process. The clarity of her purpose, message, and conviction leaves an indelible mark on whoever is in her audience.
Koko’s voice is an incredibly important one. With 80 years since the only atomic bombing in history, the hibakusha are passing away and so too are their stories of not only survival but of the lasting consequences of the bomb. By advocating for peace and bearing witness to the horrors of nuclear weapons, Koko’s message can and ought to help inform our future. The deployment of the atomic bomb was the apotheosis of war and in that extreme Koko has chosen not retribution but prevention and forgiveness.
About War and Peace
When listening to Koko, I could not help but consider what her message of peace and reconciliation means for today’s world.
Advancements in technology have enabled increasingly lethal and autonomous weapons systems to improve efficiency while blurring responsibility. Koko’s lifework sprang from her encounter with the American pilot. What does it mean that there could be no Robert A. Lewis today? No human to grapple with the consequences of dropping a bomb and to later reconcile with the bomb survivors? It is so much easier to be removed than to lean into the horrid, violent, and complicated responsibility of war.
Her time with the pilot led Koko to hate war itself. The atomic bomb, the type of violence she experienced, was the ultimate expression of war: the complete annihilation, obliteration, and evaporation of her city with destructive powers spanning decades. Today, leaders in the United States talk of “maximum lethality” in a might makes right national security strategy. What does the callous indifference from leaders to civilian harm in war mean for those of us who believe deeply in peace, diplomacy, and the just use of force? Koko’s message stands in stark contrast with this realist approach to war.
Attitudes on the issue of nuclear weapons themselves are also changing. Since August 1945, no atomic bomb has been used as a weapon of war. Its use has been held back by a fragile normative balance of extended deterrence and nuclear taboo. Those norms are eroding. As of February 2026, there are no treaties between the U.S. and Russia limiting the numbers of strategic nuclear weapons. Compounding this fact, changing U.S. commitments to extended deterrence have heightened tensions; countries including South Korea, Japan, and Poland are openly considering pursuing nuclear options. The political will for a nuclear-free world is fading. Can we develop renewed moral power to guide and restrain the building, stockpiling, and deployment of humankind’s most deadly weapon?
Conclusion
While Koko was sitting with us in New York City, she was intrigued by the portrait of Andrew Carnegie hanging on the wall. Carnegie believed deeply in arms control and international cooperation as a means to achieve peace. He founded Carnegie Council in an effort, in part, to stop the militarization that led to World War I. War ensued nonetheless, and lessons unlearned precipitated the next war; the very conflict that affected Koko and her family. The connection between the two international peace advocates was profound. Their work directly informed the post-war world order, characterized, in part, by norms of just war and protection of civilians.
And while voices of the hibakusha are fading, Koko, with her quick wit and feisty personality, persists. Meeting Koko taught me that the moral courage needed to face some of the world’s most entrenched issues grows not from outsourcing responsibility but from personal commitment to creating a better world.
Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs is an independent and nonpartisan nonprofit. The views expressed within this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Carnegie Council.
