By Jeffrey Page

Some Republicans in Congress believe that in the great scheme of things, Ronald Reagan ranks one step behind God and a billion steps in front of everyone else. And so, they’re calling for the U.S. $50 bill to be redesigned. Off would go the bewhiskered Ulysses S. Grant, the Union general and 18th president, and on would go Reagan, the movie actor and 40th president.

Such a switch would be a mistake. I’m not interested in preserving Grant for Grant’s sake. If the United States is tired of Grant, it could opt for Eisenhower or Truman, Kennedy or Albert Einstein.  In fact, the nation has redesigned its money before. The dime, for example, used to bear the image of the goddess Liberty wearing a winged cap. And in 1946, just one year after he died, Franklin Roosevelt’s image replaced Liberty’s.

But Reagan?

If for no reason other than his moronic decision to lay a wreath at the German military cemetery at Bitburg in 1985, Reagan’s picture ought to remain in the family albums and the scrapbooks of his followers, and not on American currency.

Twenty-five years ago, Reagan was asked by German Chancellor Helmut Kohl to visit the cemetery where 2,000 German soldiers were buried. Also interred at Bitburg were the remains of 49 others.

Those 49 had served with almost 1 million others not in the Army but in the SS, the military-police wing of the Nazi party that amounted to Hitler’s personal army. The SS was the muscle for some of the greatest atrocities the Nazis inflicted.

In one of the more embarrassing screw-ups of his administration, Reagan’s people were unaware of the SS graves until after he had accepted Kohl’s invitation. Informed, finally, Reagan refused to change his plans. To Bitburg he would go.

Reagan, whose eyesight kept him out of combat during World War II, spent the war years in California making movies for the Army. As president, he ignored the requests of World War II veterans to cancel or change the visit. The vets weren’t concerned so much about the 2,000 regular troops buried at Bitburg. It was the 49. And vets had something to say in this matter. Nearly 410,000 Americans troops were killed in the war against Germany and its ally Japan.

Jews, too, asked Reagan to avoid Bitburg. Jews knew something about death in great numbers as well. Even the House and Senate got into the dispute, both adopting resolutions opposing the visit to the Bitburg cemetery. But Reagan was determined to go.

It was to persuade Reagan not to visit the cemetery that Elie Wiesel uttered his much quoted plea: “That place, Mr. President, is not your place. Your place is with the victims of the SS.”

It made no difference. Reagan preferred to ignore American veterans, Congress, and Jewish Americans rather than confront Kohl, tell him that a mistake had been made, and insist on finding a cemetery without graves of SS murderers.

On the same day he visited the Bitburg cemetery, Reagan also visited the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where 50,000 people are buried, and served up some of his typical sentimental tripe. “Here they lie,” he was quoted by The New York Times. “Never to hope. Never to pray. Never to love. Never to heal. Never to laugh. Never to cry.”

I’m not sure about healing and laughing, but I imagine that anyone caught in the Nazi killing machine did plenty of hoping, and plenty of praying, loving, and crying.

If Reagan believed a visit to Bergen-Belsen somehow balanced his wreath-laying at Bitburg, he was a fool.

Ronald Reagan on the $50 bill would be an absurdity.

Jeffrey can be reached at jeffrey@zestoforange.com

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