Ronald Reagan - The Bonzo Years
1985
4/11/85
The White House announces that President Reagan will lay a wreath at the Bitburg, West Germany, military cemetery housing the graves of both American and Nazi soldiers. It is quickly noted that there are, in fact, no Americans buried there.
4/16/85
As the contra aid vote approaches, President Reagan claims he "just had a verbal message delivered to me from Pope John Paul, urging us to continue our efforts in Central America." The Vatican quickly issues a denial.
4/29/85
President Reagan defends the Bitburg visit as "morally right," adding, "I know all the bad things that happened in that war. I was in uniform for four years myself." President Reagan spent his time during World War Two in Hollywood, making training films.
5/5/85
After having visited the Bergen-Belsen death camp, President Reagan makes an eight minute stop at Bitburg. During the ceremony, he cites a letter from 13-year-old Beth Flom who, he claims, "urged me to lay the wreath at Bitburg cemetery in honor of the future of Germany." In fact, she urged him not to go at all.
5/8/85
Opponents of President Reagan's Nicaraguan policies heckle him at the European Parliament. "They haven't been there," he says. "I have." In actuality, he had not been there.
10/6/85
The New York Times Magazine runs a cover story on "The Mind of the President", in which it is pointed out that though Reagan "likes to say...that he is a 'voracious reader' and 'history buff'...neither he nor his friends, when asked, could think of particular history books he had read or historians he liked." Says a White House aide, "You have to treat him as if you were the director and he was the actor, and you tell him what to say and what not to say, and only then does he say the right thing."
11/13/85
"He's just so programmed. We tried to tell him what was in the bill but he doesn't understand. Everyone, including Republicans, were just shaking their heads." - Rep. Mary Rose Oskar (D-OH) on President Reagan's reaction to the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings balanced budget bill.
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