Reagan Paid His Dues in World War II
Amid all the publicity surrounding Reagan’s visits to Bitburg cemetery and Bergen-Belsen, the former concentration camp, I have read no mention of Reagan’s earlier assertions about his visit in the 1940s to at least one death camp.
On March 5, 1984, the Washington Post published an account by Lou Cannon of remarks Reagan made to Yitzhak Shamir in November, 1983, and again to Simon Wiesenthal and Rabbi Martin Hier two months later.
In his comments to these men, Reagan “recollected” his experience as a photographer in an Army unit assigned to film Nazi concentration camps immediately after World War II. When the claims were found to be nothing more than the total fabrication of our President, for whom opportunistic invention seems second nature, the impact of the falsehoods simply bounced off that well-worn, but sturdy, Teflon hide.
Now that he actually has visited a former death camp, is it possible that Reagan will start believing his earlier flight of fancy and, once again, expect others to share the delusion?
SUE DOUGALL
San Diego
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