A colleague at the Hiroshima memorial argued that, without the 1945 bombings, nuclear weapons would have been used during the Korean War and then more readily afterward. Clarke regards this as a counterfactual worth discussing, while preferring that the weapons had never been used. He objects to voicing it in the memorial among Japanese visitors. At that moment he was examining a school uniform assembled from the clothing of three children who died, whose appearance recalled his own primary-school uniform. That experience explains his objection to discussing the counterfactual in that setting.
Notable Point · 2:19:47-2:21:28
Hiroshima, counterfactual arguments, and historical setting
A difficult counterfactual about later nuclear use is separated from the question of whether the Hiroshima memorial is an appropriate place to voice it.