Buchanan Book Stirs Charges Of Anti-Semitism

By Alan Elsner, Political Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pat Buchanan, who is likely to seek the Reform Party's presidential nomination, has reignited charges that he is anti-Semitic with a book arguing Britain and France were wrong to go to war with Nazi Germany in 1939.

Buchanan, who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican White House nomination in 1992 and 1996, has said he will soon announce whether he is resigning from the party to try to head the Reform Party ticket next year. Most analysts expect him to do so.

Meanwhile, he has published a book -- "A Republic, Not an Empire" -- that has Jews, historians and others up in arms.

Buchanan argues that Britain and France made a historic mistake when they went to war over Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939. Instead, they should have allowed the German dictator to swallow Poland and then attack the Soviet Union and its brutal leader Josef Stalin.

"By redirecting Hitler's first blow upon themselves, Britain and France bought Stalin two extra years to prepare for Hitler's attack -- and thus saved the Soviet Union for Communism," Buchanan wrote.

He also argued the United States had no stake in the war, even after Germany had conquered France.

Buchanan faces opposition within the Reform Party from Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, who is hoping to lure New York real estate mogul Donald Trump to run against Buchanan.

TRUMP DENOUNCES BUCHANAN

Trump was quick to denounce Buchanan for denigrating "the memory of those Americans who gave their lives in the Second World War in the effort to stop Hitler."

Washington Jewish Week columnist Douglas Bloomfield said Trump was not a major political figure and it was striking how few Republicans and Democrats had taken issue with Buchanan.

"Republicans are sucking up to him, hoping to keep him in the party, while Democrats are content to keep quiet and hope he damages the Republicans by joining the Reform Party," he said.

Emery University historian Deborah Lipstadt said Buchanan's views were more generally seen on the Web pages of right-wing extremists than from a serious presidential candidate.

"This is a serious distortion of history because it shifts part of the blame for the Holocaust of 6 million Jews to the Allies," said Lipstadt, author of "Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory."

BUCHANAN SAYS NO BIGOTRY

But in a CNN interview Monday, Buchanan defended his book saying, "There's not a trace of bigotry in that book and there's not a trace of bigotry in my heart toward any individual or group of individuals."

Many Jews have long considered Buchanan anti-Semitic, citing his past opposition to the deportation from the United States of former Nazis, his description of Holocaust survivors' memories as "group fantasies of martyrdom" and his complaint, repeated recently, that U.S. foreign policy has been dominated by Jews and the pro-Israel lobby.

Buchanan also recently complained there were too many Jews and Asians at Ivy League universities and suggested they should reserve 75 percent of their enrollment for "non-Jewish whites."

"This man has a very strong animus against Jews, which amounts to anti-Semitism," said Walter Reich, a former director of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington who is now at George Washington University.

"It has led him in one March 1990 column to advance the totally specious argument that carbon monoxide could not have been used to kill Jews in Treblinka where 850,000 were gassed. It would be a travesty if he represented a party running in the election," said Reich.

Elizabeth Coleman, civil rights director of the Anti-Defamation League, which anti-Semitism, said that minimizing Hitler was an insult both to Jews and to Americans.

"There's an aura of anti-Semitism in these latest comments. He continues to harp on about the 'undue influence' of Jews in America but like all other Americans, Jews have a right to speak out about U.S. policy without being accused of undermining our country," she said.

Buchanan himself has often dismissed charges of anti-Semitism. In one 1996 interview he said: "We have Jewish supporters. We've got rabbis on the board of our campaign. We've had Jewish friends our whole life."

• AN UNNECESSARY WAR? (Washington Post, Oct 11, 1999)