It's over, but the Bitburg blunder, too, should not be forgotten. All day long he talked of Hell and Nazi evil, to submerge the event. . . . Not even Mr. Reagan's eloquent words before the mass graves of Bergen-Belsen could erase the fact that his visit there was an afterthought, to atone for the inadvertent salute to those SS graves.
- New York Times (6 May 1985)
Before we gloss over the Reagan era in our collective efforts to lionize the man, we would be less than honest if we left out one of the more insensitive and embarrassing moments of the Reagan era: his trip to a Nazi SS cemetery in Bitburg. Memorializing those complicit in the deaths of 6 million Jews is hardly something that you'll hear much about from those who are preparing Reagan for sainthood. If we're going to remember the man, let's at least display a degree of intellectual honesty and remember the totality of his legacy.
