Politics & Entertainment Week

What could have been the true intentions behind Ronald Reagan's 1985 visit to the Kolmeshohe Cemetery at Bitburg?

It was French novelist, essayist, and playwright Albert Camus who said, "The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding."

It was newsman Ted Koppel who said, "History is a tool used by politicians to justify their intentions."

That said, what could have been the true intentions behind Ronald Reagan's 1985 visit to the Kolmeshohe Cemetery at Bitburg?

The plan was to observe the 40th anniversary of V-E Day -- May 8, 1945 -- and the collapse of Hitler's Third Reich.

It was thought that American soldiers were buried alongside approximately 2,000 German servicemen. As it turned out, the remains of all American servicemen had long since been removed from Germany, and there were 49 members of the notorious Waffen SS interred at Kolmeshohe. The Waffen SS has been held responsible for the massacre of 71 American POWs during the Battle of the Bulge.

Though Reagan's visit lasted but a mere eight minutes, it was not overlooked.

Reagan claimed that the German soldiers were "victims of Nazism also ... drafted into service to carry out the hateful wishes of the Nazis." Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler responded that this equation of Nazi soldiers to Holocaust victims was "a callous offense for the Jewish people." Despite widespread disapproval of the planned visit, Reagan proceeded as planned.

"As I watched it on TV, somehow it really bothered me," recalls Joey Ramone in My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes To Bitburg), and continues with, "You watch the world complain but you do it anyway."

Reagan's second term has been dubbed by some as "The Bonzo Years," drawing from the title of one of his Hollywood films, "Bedtime For Bonzo," where he plays a college professor who adopts a chimpanzee (Bonzo) and attempts to raise it as a child. Classy stuff.

Is it me or does "W" bear a striking resemblance to Bonzo?