“For decades, King
spoke adamantly against the nuclear weapons that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki, saying that further use of such bombs would transform the world into “an inferno that even the mind of Dante could not imagine.” In a 1967 letter addressed to the “People of Japan,” King wrote, “Japan knows the horror of war and has suffered as no other nation under the cloud of nuclear disaster. Certainly Japan can stand strong for a world of peace.” He also wrote of his desire to visit, expressing hope that “my schedule will soon permit me to bring a word of greeting to you from the people of good will and brotherhood in the United States.”