Related Link Hiroshima:  What People Think Now (HNN)

[Barack Obama is headed to Hiroshima, a first for an American president.] During his visit to the city, Obama is expected to give a speech on nonproliferation of nuclear weapons — a topic that he has touched on many times before. He is not expected to apologize for the bombing itself.

Even so, such a visit may reflect shifting viewpoints of Americans on Hiroshima. Last year, Pew Research Center compiled a number of polls about public attitudes to the bombings in America and Japan.

In the first Gallup poll from 1945 just after the bombings, a huge 85 percent of Americans approved the bombings. However, figures from 2005 show a significant decline to 57 percent. Meanwhile, another poll conducted by the Detroit Free Press in the United States and Japan in 1991 found that 63 percent of Americans thought that the bombings were justified in a bid to end the war, while just 29 percent of Japanese did.