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October 6, 1988, Thursday

SECTION: NEWS; Ed. 1,2,3; Pg. A-27

LENGTH: 389 words

HEADLINE: Reagan rips anti-Semitism in talk at site of planned Holocaust museum

SOURCE: AP

BODY:
President Reagan issued a challenge to anti-Semitism at home and abroad yesterday as he dedicated the cornerstone of a Holocaust museum in the face of protesters who called the memorial un-American and anti-Christian.

Speaking at a ceremony near the Washington Monument, Reagan said the Holocaust Memorial Museum, scheduled for completion in 1992, "will examine the nature and meaning of the continuing curse that is anti-Semitism, the disgusting task of minimizing or even denying the truth of the Holocaust," he said. "This act of intellectual genocide must not go unchallenged."

Reagan referred to groups that dispute the generally accepted account of the murder of about 6 million Jews and other persecuted people in Nazi death camps during World War II.

"And yet, just as we must challenge it here at home, so too we must challenge anti-Semitism abroad," he said, accusing the United Nations of "intellectual infamy" and the Soviet Union of "the subtler forms of anti-Semitism."

"We know that the United Nations, whose peacekeepers were honored only last week for their service to the world, has yet to repeal its infamous resolution equating Zionism and racism," he said. "We know where such intellectual infamy can lead. The world has learned that when the truth is turned on its head, holocausts become possible.

"And there are subtler forms of anti-Semitism," Reagan added. "There are still tens of thousands -- maybe even hundreds of thousands -- of Soviet Jews who wait to leave the Soviet Union so that they may live free as Jews.

"And here, as we lay this cornerstone and vow that the Jewish people will never stand alone against tyranny, I want to ask the Soviet leaders a question: Where are those exit visas?"

Reagan's remarks drew warm applause from the invited audience of about 1,500. The president, assisted by Harvey Meyerhoff of Baltimore, chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Commission, pulled a gold cord to reveal the chunk of pink North Carolina granite that will stand at the corner of the museum.

As the president's motorcade approached the site, however, it passed a scattering of pickets carrying signs. One read, "Stop Un-American Holocaust Museum on Our Historic Mall."

Another attacked the museum as "Anti-American, Anti-Christian, Anti-Truth."

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