Word: bitburg
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...failed to highlight the visit of President Reagan to the Bitburg cemetery in West Germany. This event was condemned by numerous religious and veterans' groups and was widely perceived to be insensitive to the memory of those who perished during the tumultuous years of World War II. Noach Dear, Councilman 32nd District, Brooklyn New York
This is not just bad history, but terrible politics. It is all the more ironic because the only conceivable reason for the Bitburg visit in the first place is politics: alliance politics. Kohl had a problem. His exclusion from D-day ceremonies last year gave ammunition to those who complain that Germany bears equally the burdens of the Western alliance but is denied equal respect. Reagan wanted to use this ceremony to help Kohl...
...Bitburg fiasco is a mess, but even messes have a logic. This incident is a compound of some of the worst tendencies of the Reagan presidency: a weakness for theater, a neglect of history and a narrowly conceived politics...
...pedagogy (for those who were not there) and solace (for those too much there). But the highest aim of remembrance (for us, here) is redemption. The President and the Chancellor did indeed want this V-E day to bring some good from evil. But for that to happen at Bitburg will require more than two politicians. It will require an act of grace, and that is not for politicians--or other mortals--to dispense...
Regan's staff, a mixture of onetime Treasury aides, first-term holdovers and recalled Reaganauts, has acted effectively in crises. It is credited with preventing much long-term damage from the President's visit to the German cemetery at Bitburg, once the decision to go had been made, and managing the White House response to the Beirut hostage taking adroitly. Indeed, some of the Capitol Hill criticism of Regan seems to reflect primarily congressional nostalgia for Baker's assiduous wooing of legislators, which Regan has neither the temperament nor the inclination to duplicate...