Okay... it was just a problem with the Israelis's English. In fact all the instances of Reagan's fabulating were misspeaking, fatigue, or problems with his listeners English. *cough*
"[Lou] Cannon wrote a retrospective account of the whole sequence in the Post, wondering how such intelligent men as Wiesenthal and Shamir could, on two separate occasions and independently of each other, take an unexceptional story (who has not seen films of the death camps) and imagine an identical elaboration of it."
Garry Wills p 169
(The elaboration being the statement they reported Reagan making, on these two occasions, to two different individuals, that he had been assigned, as part of his war duties, to the filming of Nazi death camps for the Signal Corps.)
A third witness to the statements, Rabbi Hier, who had been with Wiesenthal, was later convinced by "callers from the White House" that what Reagan had MEANT was that he had seen Signal Corps films while in the service... Rabi Hier told Cannon that Reagan may have fallen into "rhetorical excess."
What do you think about Reagan saying to hecklers in the World Parliament, about Nicaragua, "They haven't been there. I have." ? (He hadn't.) Fatigue? Misspeaking? Poor English on the part of the listeners?
I really AM leaving now. |
