Antiwar demonstrators throng Japanese rallies

May 25, 1982

Hundreds of thousands of peace activists Sunday held the largest antiwar demonstration ever staged in a Japanese city, while Japanese armed forces started large-scale war games.

Organizers claimed 400,000 people participated in the Tokyo rally. Police put the total at less than 200,000, but agreed it was the largest mass demonstration ever held in Japan. The demonstrators gathered in Tokyo, Nagasaki, and Hiroshima in the nation that experienced the effects of two US atomic bombs dropped during World War II.