WASHINGTON -- President Reagan said today he will go ahead with plans to visit a Germany cemetery containing the bodies of Nazi stormtroopers because to do otherwise would make it look like he 'caved in to unfavorable attention.'
Answering questions from regional editors and broadcasters, Reagan took a final question on the controversy surrounding his state visit to West Germany May 5 and 6. He said the cemetery at Bitburg was chosen because it is near an American military base where he will attend church and lunch with servicemen the same day.
'I think that it would be very hurtful (if I canceled the visit) and all it would do is leave me looking as if I'd caved in in face of some unfavorable attention,' Reagan said.
'I think there is nothing wrong with visiting that cemetery where those young men are victims of Naziism also, even though they were fighting in the German uniform, drafted into the service to carry out the hateful wishes of the Nazis. They were victims just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps. And I feel there is much to be gained from this.'
As for his reversal of a decision not to visit a former concentration camp, Reagan again took the blame for misunderstanding what had been an official German invitation to do so and for not completely answering a question at his last news conference on the subject, when he said he would rather concentrate on the future than the past.
'I realize now I should listen to you,' he told the journalists. 'I credit those who were questioning me.'
At the news conference, he said the Germans should not be forced to relive an era few of them remembered. But today he said, the Germans 'believe me, live in constant penance.'
The controversy over his plan to honor German war dead at the cemetery at Bitburg hit Reagan in the midst of the 'Days of Remembrance' -- a flurry of ceremonies marking the 40th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi camps.
Today, under the dome of the Capitol, the Army honored Holocaust victims and survivors by presenting the flags of the 10 Army units that liberated the camps to Elie Wiesel, chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. Wiesel will receive a congressional gold medal from Reagan Friday.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday night, Reagan said many of those buried at Bitburg -- some of them members of the notorious Nazi Waffen SS - were '17- and 18-year-olds, virtually youngsters, conscripted into service toward the end of the war.'
'I see nothing wrong in recognizing they, too, were victims of Nazism,' he said.
The defense of his travel plans came during a state dinner for Algerian President Chadli Bendjedid, even as 53 senators urged Reagan to drop the Bitburg visit.
Rejecting their advice, Reagan said a visit last year to a cemetery near Verdun by West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and French President Francois Mitterrand had the effect of 'a healing of wounds' and asserted postwar reconciliation can be strengthened by his visit to Bitburg.
Blaming the tempest on 'speculation and rumor,' Reagan offered to 'take some of the blame' for rejecting the idea of a concentration camp visit weeks ago, then agreeing to such a stop Tuesday to ease criticism from Jewish groups.
'There was some confusion,' he conceded.
Reagan said he did not think the original invitation Kohl extended for a state visit permitted a side trip to a death camp site and learned otherwise only in a subsequent letter earlier this week.
White House spokesman Larry Speakes described the Bitburg stop as locked into place for Reagan's May 5-6 state visit. Other officials said canceling the event would embarrass Kohl.
'The decision, as bad as it now seems, has been made,' said one official.
Officials said the camps at Dachau and Bergen-Belsen were under consideration. Although logistics favored Bergen-Belsen, Speakes said no decision would be announced until Deaver returned.
The camp site visit was added as an attempt at political damage control but it failed to mute criticism of his plan to lay a wreath at the cemetery, where 2,800 German soldiers are buried.
The chorus calling for Reagan to alter his plans grew louder as the senators, led by Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, urged him to cancel the cemetery stop.
'Given the bitterness of the Battle of the Bulge, the atrocities it entailed, and the massive participation of the SS, we believe that a visit to Bitburg by an American president would be most unfortunate,' the senators wrote. 'We suggest that a more appropriate gesture of reconciliation be found.'
