Dutch: on Foreign Policy

Consoled Taiwan when Nixon went to China

Reagan's ambivalence over such a mission is evident in a speech he wrote : "The President has been blunt in his declarations that we will not under any circumstances desert an old friend and ally. give anything away, or betray or honor. If I am wrong and that should be the result--time then for indignation."

This was good enough for Nixon. In 1971, Governor Reagan found himself appointed special presidential envoy and dizzyingly transported to a throne room in Taiwan. Chiang Kai-Shek received him stiff with rage. "Look, I don't like this any more than you do, but it had to happen sooner or later."

Flying home, Reagan found that he had been converted by his own mission. Taiwan was more secure now than before since "the People's Republic," would have to respect its sovereignty or compromise the new rapprochement.

Bergen-Belsen concentration camp: Never again

What we have seen makes unforgettably clear that no one of the rest of us can fully understand the enormity of the feelings carried by the victims of these camps.

Here lie people-Jews- whose death was inflicted for no other reason than their very existence. Here death ruled.

We are here because humanity refuses to accept that freedom or the spirit of man can ever be extinguished. We are here to commemorate that life triumphed over the tragedy and the death of the Holocaust. Out of the ashes-hope, and from all the pain-promise.

As we flew here, over the greening farms and the emerging springtime, I reflected that there must have been a time when the prisoners of Bergen-Belsen and those of every other camp must have felt that the springtime was gone forever from their lives. Here they lie. Never to hope. Never to pray. Never to love. Never to heal. Never to laugh. Never to cry.

Never again.

Iran-Contra: maybe authorized it, unknowingly

It was the reaction, in Regan's opinion, of a complete innocent. Or, it was the reaction, a cynic might say, of someone who had been found out. Guilt drains blood just as fast as shock.

Only the Admiral knows whether Reagan knowingly authorized the transfer of illegal funds from illegal mercenaries in the Middle East to another set of illegal mercenaries in Central America. My suspicion is that Reagan did authorize the transfer, not having the smallest comprehension of the laws he was subverting. Reagan's character by 1986 had become so lacking in curiosity & his life as president so repetitive, that when I went to interview him, I was reminded of the what-am-I-doing-here look of an actor between takes