European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 23, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes april columns William Safire Reagan still could finish Strong on Germany trip if you were planning a series of events to commemorate the and you were seeking some after 40 to re vilify the Nightmare of nazi what series of unlikely events would you Hope for first you would have a team of White House Advance men let it be known that the president of the would decline to visit a site of a concentration Camp during a visit to West then you would have the president botch his answer at a press giving As his reason a desire not to impose a sense of i tilt on germans for the murder of 6 to top it to reach far beyond surviving jews into the Homes of tens of millions or american and German you would get the president to announce his incredible intention of laying a Wreath at a cemetery that includes the Graves of nazi Waffen is officers who May have been among those responsible for the murder of prisoners during the Battle of the in the ensuing Roar of our West German allies would be reminded that any attempt to forget the unforgivable will always be mightily resisted lews All Over the including the would be forced to look again into the abyss and the Genera Tion of americans who fought the last uncontroversial War would Rise to instruct its present leaders that state sponsored evil is never a hard though it May be to All the attention getting blunders took place and the fierce re action has been All that moralists and patriots could have hoped White House Advance men will remember the Deay or debacle for and no agent will soon repeat this farrago of unseemly acts and insensitive but there is this to be said for All that has gone wrong it has produced worthwhile results in several the Post landslide hubris of the Reagan image makers has been sharply the presidents men Are not Public relations geniuses and As com has shown himself to be capable of ing opinion and stumbling Over this president has demonstrated a willingness to admit error rather than to hang Tough to the bitter after his ill briefed news he went out of his Way to Tell interviewers i will say any time that anyone wants me to say As publicly As i that we must never and he actually used the words my mistaken impression in connection with his earlier decision to forgo a visit to a death those forthright corrections Are signs of strength and Good he is now Likely to strike the right balance in what he finally the balance is not to say whats past is past to germans and we must never forget to which is but to celebrate 40 years of peace without Ever forgetting what the War was which is not the least this Means a visit to a concentration Camp not by a memorial a German like Konrad the Pitburg cemetery is the wrong place to what the president says is at least As important As what he Here is the Opportunity to Cement the Alliance of former enemies with an understanding of its and a Chance to assure the survivors of the holocaust and All those who suffered in world War ii that remembrance still banalities and Schmaltz will not suffice if the president is to recoup not just for but for All of us the Content of his message must be thought through and its subtleties expressed now is the after the blunders and for the legions of the offended to Stop ripping into the president and to Start rooting for him As our representative to thinking shallowly at and then sloppily Reagan compounded his error and earned the angry reaction made aware of the unexploded minefields of he faces the Challenge of responding with Grace and Clar will he Rise to the occasion his evident concern and eagerness to Correct his mistakes give us reason to Hope the necessary remembrance or evil by germans and americans does not conflict with the purposes of our Alliance on the the Point is waiting to be made that reminders of the hell of the past binds us to protect Freedom in the reagans initial stumble will turn out to be a Blessing if we give him a Chance to straighten up and finish c 1985 new York times Syndicate William Buckley a pledge to never appear with a communist again a its the fall of and the Young president of the Yale political who is now a United states senator from invites me to address the Union As a part of a series of speak one of whom is Gus Secretary of the communist party of the United i replied to Young David Boren that i do not accept engagements in series that include but that i would agree to speak on the that a communist should not be invited to if the House voted in favor of my then the invitation to Hall would be in addressing the i recalled that a few weeks earlier president John Meng of Hunter College in new York had been confronted with the news that the student political Assembly at Hunter had invited both a communist official the same Gus Hall and a nazi George Lincoln who was the self styled commander of the american nazi Meng addressed a letter to the student body in which he said that he would not interfere with their right to invite whomsoever they but that to Accord these undistinguished visitors anything More demonstrative than a shudder of polite disgust would be to attribute to their presence a totally fictitious he Hen called on the faculty of Hunter to join with him in making an appropriate demonstration on the Day that Rockwell or Hall arrived faculty and students would remove to a synagogue to participate in a memorial service for victims of nazism and so i asked the student which would vote on whether to reaffirm the invitation to the com whether they expected to hear anything from him they did not already communists in Amer whether native or come to recapitulate their to press their drive to coopt the moral slogans of the and to practice the science of i conceded that communists Are fit objects of intellectual but Only for practising sociologists or psychologists who inquire into the Darker mysteries of the human but political assemblies Arent psychological and i they Are human and few of us Are practice in giving off that shudder of polite disgust recommended by president How then do you treat communists who have been invited you May jeer him some of you May treat him with that terrible coldness that is the sign of the intellectual foreknowledge that you at your level of take seriously the Man who Speaks and works for a kingdom which it is the very purpose of your education to know to Why then bring him if no purpose can be served and if it can Only result that you will humiliate yourself and him and i concluded fight fight the tyrants everywhere but do not ask them to your merely to spit on and do not ask them to your quarters if you cannot spit on to do the one is ambush a human being As one might a Rabid dog to do the other is to ambush yourself Rinto break ing Faith with recently on Ted Koppel had on yet again a communist one Alexander the Washington Bureau chief of Moscow so called he uttered the usual about How soviet foreign policy under Gorbachev would continue to pursue the traditional soviet goals of peace and i said we were listening to the usual Koppel lets not get into extraneous i but in the fact that he is lying is intrinsic to the whole matter of the discussions in the producer whispered into my earpiece that i should interrupt the i did and in doing affronted a million listeners who wondered Why i interrupted when he didst interrupt the communist said he want on the show to be i said to speak the truth is not to and in about eight the whole stupid Exchange was and i thought Back to that Day 22 years ago when i succeeded in persuading the students of Yale to withdraw their invitation to the communist and kicked myself for ignoring my own and resolved to make a Public which is Here in your presence i shall never so Long As i accept an invitation to appear on a program with a i dont want to humiliate a human being or to be humiliated by pretending to treat him As a human being rather than As a functionary of slave