[xm177e2]

In the Oval Office, Ronald Reagan told Yitzhak Shamir and Simon Wiesenthal, on two separate occasions, that he himself had assisted personally at the liberation of the Nazi death camps.

This is pretty pathetic, if true.

[Nonstatist]

This is pretty pathetic, if true

Given Reasgan wasnt in Europe at the time, its hard to believe he told many (any?) people this story. Its the first Ive heard of it, and Im sure the Press wouldnt keep it a secret.

[beckett]

Hitchens: In the Oval Office, Ronald Reagan told Yitzhak Shamir and Simon Wiesenthal, on two separate occasions, that he himself had assisted personally at the liberation of the Nazi death camps.

xm177e2: This is pretty pathetic, if true.

Almost certainly untrue. Wiesenthal cannot be trusted and if Shamir had been told anything so easily shown to be false we would have heard of it long before now. My guess is Hitchens has embellished a remark Reagan made that was open to several interpretations. Notice he offers no quotation marks.

Hitchens wrote the whole piece looking for nasty things to say about Reagan. That he had to reach for something as silly as this shows he had slim pickings to draw from.

[Mustangcountry]

No he did not.

Hitchens is a damn liar. You should read some of his whoppers about Pinochet and the Khmer Rouge.

[BlazingArizona]

In the Oval Office, Ronald Reagan told Yitzhak Shamir and Simon Wiesenthal, on two separate occasions, that he himself had assisted personally at the liberation of the Nazi death camps. This is pretty pathetic, if true.

I haven't heard this charge before, but this looks like one of those out-of-context quotes like Hitchens' other one, that famous "missiles can be recalled" statement. Reagan was dead right on this one, actually. The context of his remark was a comparison of land-based ICBMs to submarine-launched missiles. In the latter case, the sub acts as a "first stage" of the delivery system. Up to the moment the missile is launched, the sub can be contacted and the launch canceled. This option does not exist with land-based missiles.