May 5, 1985: Wrong Script

Sets of quotes from Paul Slansky:

1) Ron watches a movie inside his head.

12/6 [1983] The Israeli newspaper Maariv reports that during a meeting with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, President Reagan—who spent World War II making training films in Hollywood—claimed to have served as a photographer in an army unit filming the horrors of Nazi death camps. Shamir says Reagan also claimed to have saved a copy in case there was ever any question as to whether things had really been so bad. When asked just that question by a family member, Shamir quotes him as saying, "This is the time for which I saved the film, and I showed it to a group of people who couldn't believe their eyes."

2/16 [1984] Welcoming Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal and Rabbi Marvin Hier to the White House, President Reagan again claims, according to Hier, to have "photographed Nazi atrocities while he was with the Signal Corps." When reporters question this account, James Baker elicits from Reagan the clarification that he "never left the country" during the war and "never told anyone that he did." As to how Shamir and Hier—in two separate meetings—could have come away with the same wrong story, Baker has no explanation.

2) Spring, 1985: Ron's people make plans.

4/11 The White house announces that President Reagan will lay a wreath at the Bitburg, West Germany, military cemetery housing the graves of both American and Nazi soldiers. Oops! Correction: no Americans are buried there.

4/13 WHITE HOUSE RECONSIDERING REAGAN'S VISIT TO GERMAN WAR GRAVES
—The New York Times

4/17 REAGAN GOING TO DEATH CAMP
—New York Newsday

4/18 Michael Deaver—who somehow failed to notice Nazi gravestones last time he was there—is back in West Germany searching for an appropriate concentration camp to add to the President's itinerary. Asks Rep. Pat Schroeder, "What are they looking for? The right light angle?'"

Meanwhile, Reagan defends his visit to Bitburg by claiming the German soldiers "were victims, just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps." Says an aide,"Oh my God!"

4/19 Elie Wiesel—fortunate enough to be accepting a medal from the President on the same day The New York Times carries the headline "Reagan Likens Nazi War Dead to Concentration Camp Victims"—tells his host, "That place, Mr. President, is not your place. Your place is with the victims of the SS." Reagan puts on his sad face.

4/26 257 IN THE HOUSE BID [Helmut] KOHL CANCEL CEMETARY EVENT
—The New York Times

4/27 82 SENATORS URGE REAGAN TO CANCEL HIS BITBURG VISIT
—The New York Times

4/29 President Reagan defends the Bitburg visit as "morally right," adding, I know all the bad things that happened in that war. I was in uniform for four years myself." He does not claim to have filmed the death camps.

3) Ron takes a trip.

May 5 Having atoned in advance with a visit to the Bergen-Belsen death camp, President Reagan spends eight minutes at Bitburg, where cameras are forced to shoot the ceremony from poor angles. He ctes a letter from 13-year old Beth Flom who, he claims, "urged me to lay the wreath at Bitburg cemetery in honor of the future of Germany." In fact, she urged him not to go at all. Summing things up, he says, "It's been a wonderful day."