Reagan’s Visit to Bitburg

The talk surrounding President Reagan’s visit to the Bitburg cemetery leaves me disturbed. I can’t believe reconciliation had anything to do with Reagan’s motives. I also feel claims of bolstering our “strategic interests” were merely an excuse to be used when it’s convenient.

The visit came at a time when stories about the 10th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War fill the news media. Many of the stories point out that Vietnam wants a reconciliation with the United States. Vietnam is trying to avoid domination by China or Russia and seeks our aid in its effort. But we turn a deaf ear toward that nation.

The visit also came as the leaders of the majority population of South Africa ask for official U.S. moves to disengage from the minority dictatorship of that nation. And we rebuff their request.

The justification for supporting the South African regime is our strategic interests. But Vietnam is in a very strategic location and we refuse to help them stay out of the Soviet Bloc. Nicaragua is also strategically located but, as he left for Germany, President Reagan announced plans to force that nation further under Soviet influence.

Reagan could have honored reconciliation with a visit to the grave of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. If he were interested in promoting our strategic interests he would take the opportunity to reestablish influence in Southeast Asia and to undercut the Soviet influence with the true popular government in Nicaragua. If he believed his own pontifications about freedom he would withdraw our support from the dying, minority, racist dictatorship in South Africa.

But Reagan has other interests. It is not by accident that he supported the Somoza government in Nicaragua, that he supports the Botha and Pinochet governments in South Africa and Chile and that he calls Waffen SS soldiers the victims of World War II.

Reagan is clearly more comfortable with the company and memories of anti-democratic governments than he is with the aspirations of popular movements and the governments they spawn. His policies isolate the United States from its own traditions of freedom and push any freedom-seeking peoples away from us and toward the Soviet Union.

THOMAS M. HALL

Burbank