Mr. Hiroshima-san: American Appointed to Head Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation

In a sense, it is the ultimate irony: The man appointed to oversee the memorial to victims of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945 by an American B-29 aircraft is . . . an American.

Steven L. Leeper, chairman of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation PHOTO COURTESY OF STEVEN L. LEEPER

But antiwar activist Steven L. Leeper says that since his April appointment as the first foreigner to be chairman of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation — which operates the museums and memorials — residents of the world's first city to experience nuclear warfare have welcomed him.

That is apart from some rightists who protested a May 31 article in the local newspaper that, Leeper says, inaccurately quoted some of his views.