Reagan’s Words

It’s more obvious by the day that President Reagan can say anything and get away with it.

At a recent news conference he announced that he will not visit a Nazi concentration camp on his trip to Europe because he believes that the guilt that has “been imposed” on the German people is unnecessary.

He also suggested that among the German people there are “very few alive that even remember the war, and certainly none of them who were adults and participated in any way.” Can he be thinking of World War I?

Those of us with sharper memories recall only too well how the Germans--among the most educated and civilized of societies--were roused to frenzied scapegoating and militarism that ended in the Holocaust and World War II.

In the United States we’re hearing more and more of the all-purpose anti-Communist rhetoric that led us blindly into the Vietnam War. It now seems to be moving us toward accepting missiles as “peacekeepers” and preparation for nuclear war as “working for peace and friendship through military strength.”

Are nations incapable of learning anything? It would seem so, especially with heads of government who conveniently rewrite history to suit their own ideologies.

COLLETTE NORTH

Los Angeles