1985 Rock Hudson's telegraph to Reagans pleading for help. The answer was no.

[madfloridian]

Nancy Reagan Turned Down Rock Hudson’s Plea For Help Nine Weeks Before He Died

Although only a handful of people knew it, Hudson was in Paris desperately seeking treatment for AIDS — treatment that even a prominent, wealthy actor could not get in the United States in 1985.

Although more than 5,500 people had died from the disease by the start of 1985, the government had taken few significant steps toward addressing the disease — with the Reagan administration recommending a $10 million cut in AIDS spending down to $86 million in its federal budget proposal released in February 1985.

And so, Hudson traveled to France, hoping to see Dr. Dominique Dormant, a French army doctor who had secretly treated him for AIDS the past fall. Dormant, though, was unable to get the actor transferred to the military hospital. Initially, the doctor wasn’t even able to get permission to see Hudson at the American Hospital.

....“Only one hospital in the world can offer necessary medical treatment to save life of Rock Hudson or at least alleviate his illness,” Olson wrote. Although the commanding officer had denied Hudson admission to the French military hospital initially, Olson wrote that they believed “a request from the White House … would change his mind.”

First Lady Nancy Reagan turned down the request.

[farleftlib]

1. How completely chilling

How cold and heartless can you be to deny a friend's dying plea for help because of his sexual orientation?

Hillary's hero!

[AzDar]

3. How did she 'misspeak to THIS degree? To get things so completely WRONG?

Is there something seriously WRONG with her?

[madfloridian]

4. It's why there's so much outrage. The Reagan WH showed contempt toward the crisis.

[AzDar]

7. Right. My point being she has either lied egregiously again, or she has AGAIN fundamentally

misunderstood an important event/subject. Either thing should disqualify her...

[madfloridian]

10. Agree very much.

[madfloridian]

40. I was thinking the same thing.

[Fearless]

44. She LIED. Or she's a complete buffoon.

Either way.

Don't vote for her.

[AzDar]

57. ^ This.

[6chars]

55. She says it was a simple mistake

My guess is that this is part of the story.

Possibility: An aide probably prepared comments for her to read, since she is busy campaigning and what not, and it's not like she was close friends with Nancy. And the aide totally screwed it up. And after the comments and the criticism of the comments, Hillary is apologizing but doesn't want to blame the aide.

[Fearless]

58. Which is also why she voted for the Iraq War... she DIDN'T research the facts!

[6chars]

59. I don't think that is why

The majority of Democratic senators voted for it - Kerry, Biden, etc.

While it is impossible to read someone's mind, my best guess is the majority of those senators voted that way because Bush was on a roll and they didn't want the fallout of voting against it, either in their districts or for future possible plans. The evidence of WMD was not compelling, as those of us paying attention at the time could clearly see. However, I do not think it was clear at the time just how badly it would play out - that was a surprise (albeit one made worse by mismanagement). If it had been clear how badly it would play out, more of the Democratic senators would have opposed the vote.

[Fearless]

60. Did Bernie? Kennedy?

[6chars]

61. Nope.

Bernie was in congress, not the senate, but anyway, in the senate about 28 Dems voted for it and about 23 did not.

I think a vote on the merits would have been "no evidence, at least some risk. let's not do it."

Instead a typical vote of the 28 dems was "weak evidence but not much risk, I am not going to spend political capital opposing this."

But it is a logical error to now go back and assume the 28 were thinking "no evidence, and this will lead to total disaster for the US. Let's do it anyway." Few if any predicted it would go as badly as it did.

If the result had been more like that of the first Iraq war - which basically turned out pretty well as wars go from the US perspective, we wouldn't be having the same conversation.

[Fearless]

63. So I stand with Kennedy over Hillary. It's not that complicated.

[6chars]

64. I opposed the vote.

My point isn't that the vote was justified. But it just wasn't as unjustified as hindsight makes it.

[Fearless]

65. It was an easy decision to oppose it. She had the ability to see the evidence

She chose not to look at it. And voted for the war.

I didn't need their evidence, I knew it was wrong.

It was an easy decision on my part.

Very easy.

[appalachiablue]

21. Cold and heartless. Exactly the way Nancy behaved toward a group of disabled kids

a colleague at work told me. It was Spring, 1981 while I was an intern at a museum in DC through my university. I remember exactly what the coordinator in charge of the children's art program told us about an outing she and other staff went on to accompany an excited group of kids, students in her class who were selected to attend a special White House ceremony. The new First Lady, Nancy Reagan came out and immediately looked at the handicapped kids with a visible expression of horror and distain. As if to say, what is this, am I expected to deal with these creatures? A despicable response I can't envision coming from Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Kennedy, Lady Bird Johnson, Betty Ford, Rosalynn Carter, Michelle Obama or Jill Biden.

But that pair, Ronnie and Nancy were monsters, ultra conservative ones. Yesterday's thoughtless, reckless blunder about Nancy Reagan and Aids by Hillary Clinton is causing many of us connected to family and friends who faced HIV/Aids to relive a lot of painful memories. The struggle and suffering, our own loss and justified anger about the homophobic ridicule and delay in funding research by the Reagan administration. Before he died in 1992 during the height of the Aids crisis, my little brother traveled to France for treatment in addition to the care he received in NYC we later learned. Very ugly, these people. Individuals in power who make decisions over life and death. And tragic mistakes, with consequences.

[roguevalley]

25. read Nancy by that scary biographer, kitty Kelly. it gives the 411

[bigwillq]

2. Kick (nt)

[madfloridian]

5. Fair weather friends...Rock Hudson with Reagans at WH in happier times.

[CincyDem]

8. Ahh yes, at a point in his life when he could still be a "contributor".

Lying on a deathbed in Paris, not so much.

Typical.

[TheBlackAdder]

14. Funny things was... Everyone knew Rock Hudson was gay back in the 70s & 80s.

.


The Reagans and the Secret Service definitely knew he was gay too.

So that makes Nancy Reagan even more of a two-faced 'friend!"


.

[Octafish]

6. That's how they treated Rock Hudson.

He thought they were his friend.

[madfloridian]

22. They were his friends until he really needed them.

I can remember when I first read about that I just plain felt sad for him.

[Octafish]

41. If that's how they treat their friends, imagine how they treat their enemies?

And in the process, made white power, hate and racial superiority all the rage.



In 1980, Reagan declared his candidacy in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the "community" where three Civil Rights marchers were murdered in cold blood.

Reagan, White As Snow

by Alec Dubro
www.tompaine.com/, May 13, 2007

EXCERPT...

Domestically, he opposed every legislative remedy for African Americans, betraying a meanness of spirit and an open racism. As Sidney Blumenthal wrote in The Guardian in 2003:

Reagan opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (calling it "humiliating to the South&quot , and ran for governor of California in 1966 promising to wipe the Fair Housing Act off the books. "If an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in selling or renting his house," he said, "he has a right to do so." After the Republican convention in 1980, Reagan traveled to the county fair in Neshoba, Mississippi, where, in 1964, three Freedom Riders had been slain by the Ku Klux Klan. Before an all-white crowd of tens of thousands, Reagan declared: "I believe in states' rights."

It's hard to believe now, but in 1965, a higher percentage of congressional Republicans voted for the Voting Rights Act than Democrats. Reagan, then, wasn't following party tradition; he was making a grab for the white racist vote-and it worked. Southern Democrats abandoned the party en masse for one more welcoming to white supremacy. No wonder so many loved, and still love, the man: He validated people's whiteness.

It's true that Reagan knew enough to occasionally disguise his racism. He appointed Samuel Pierce to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development, where Pierce presided over the halving of housing subsidies. No matter. Reagan couldn't remember the man's name. Once, at a reception for the nation's mayors, he greeted Pierce with a '"Hello, Mr. Mayor." Despite this, a few black conservatives, such as Armstrong Williams, were willing to validate him as someone who knew better than the "civil rights establishment" what was good for African Americans.

But it was in foreign affairs that he showed that he could rise above mere opportunism and flaunt his racism for all the world to see. He was the best friend that South Africa's apartheid government had in the developed world.

CONTINUED...

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Ronald_Reagan/Reagan_WhiteAsSnow.html

When President, he allowed his staff to refer to the slain civil rights leader as "Martin Lucifer Coon."



Anybody wonder who he meant when he conflated "food-stamps, vodka, Cadillacs, and welfare queens"?

Anybody wonder why the United States has rotted from the head down?

[noiretextatique]

49. I was appalled when he was elected, with the help of Democrats

His "Make America Great Again" slogan was a thinly-veiled appeal to white resentment about civil rights, affirmative action, and the general inclusion of POC is what used to be whites only arenas in society. I also remember the country changed overnight when he was elected. People were meaner and more overtly racist...I felt it and saw it. I was just graduating from college, and trying to find a job. I still remember how the same people I talked to who were so excited on the phone reacted when I showed up Black. Horrible times. He was worse than Bush. Not by much, but worse.

[madfloridian]

71. That lawn jockey is offensive.

I saw one of those once years ago, was surprised to see one in his picture.

[Octafish]

72. Most telling of the Occupants within. It shows a remarkable disdain for the Other.

Ronald Reagan did not care for people who are not White, Anglo-Saxon Protestants. And it shows in the nation he and his ideological successors have left behind.

[AzDar]

9. Shocking, and I do mean SHOCKING video of Reagan WH Press Briefing On AIDS (1982) I posted...

yesterday...

[m-lekktor]

12. I guess I will give in and watch this now.

I haven't really had the stomach for it so far whenever i have seen it posted here or elsewhere.

[madfloridian]

13. I saw that, it's embarrassing and shameful.

Here's some more terrible ridicule and laughter in public. Even shocked Mitterand and his wife.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027675048

[AzDar]

16. OMG.

[Ed Suspicious]

29. Good on that reporter . . . and fuck the clowns laughing it up in the peanut gallery.

Also fuck the press Secretary, and fuck that administration.

[m-lekktor]

11. Thanks for this and all of your posts. This is interesting stuff. nt

[madfloridian]

15. It's like looking back and not believing.

That Larry Speakes, the Reagan WH spokesperson, was obnoxious.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisgeidner/times-the-reagan-white-house-press-briefing-erupted-with#.lfN239WZ

[m-lekktor]

17. yes somebody posted the video to this in this thread and I watched it for the first time.

It was bad. I just glanced at the transcript to it in the link you posted. It was a big joke "did you say FAIRIES?" geesh. and to think I was gay and in the US Navy back then hoping I wasn't going to test positive because they were about to make HIV testing mandatory and I had never been tested yet in the military and if you tested positive you were immediately whisked away for discharge. I saw a few of my fellow shipmates abruptly disappeared like that. I wasn't watching these press conferences back then. I didn't watch much tv during those days. What a time to live through. I tell you I dreaded waiting for the results of my very first HiV test while simultaneously being in the military. I had no idea what to expect for a result. I can't believe I tested negative. I was and am lucky. Those were the days nobody knew we had to be "safe" until it was too late for many of us.

[madfloridian]

18. I remember my fellow teachers laughing about this at the lunch table at school.

It was all a big joke to most of them. I was raised Southern Baptist, but my parents taught us from early on to care about other human beings. I was appalled at the attitudes of the teachers then, actually shocked that they were so callous.

The Reagans did not set a good example for our country in this area.

[MerryBlooms]

19. So heartbreaking. There are many of us on this site who remember all too well

what was happening. The thousands lost, the pain of losing those close to us, the frustration with the administration... it was an absolute horror.

[madfloridian]

20. "And the Band Played On" book and movie available.

Book

http://www.amazon.com/And-Band-Played-On-20th-Anniversary/dp/0312374631

Movie with Matthew Modine

http://www.amazon.com/And-Band-Played-Matthew-Modine/dp/B00005AQMJ

Read the comments.

[love_katz]

23. Huge kick and rec.

[griloco]

24. and remember Ronnie was a pedophile...

http://www.judiciaryreport.com/new_book_states_elizabeth_taylor_had_sex_with_ronald_reagan.htm

[madfloridian]

28. There seems to be no proof of that. I would leave that alone.

[griloco]

45. proof? proof? repubs don't need no stinkin' proof

Seriously, here's some more
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2935230/The-Playboy-President-young-Ronald-Reagan-charmed-50-Hollywood-s-leading-ladies-including-Marilyn-Monroe-luxury-LA-bungalow.html

[madfloridian]

62. I was mostly referring to...

the use of the word pedophile. There is no doubt they all slept around, but I just objected to use of that word.

[griloco]

66. i go with the broad definition--

Way overage of consent with underage. We could also go
with child rapist. Reagan devotees (who are all superly moral Christians) can argue semantics if they wish.

[madfloridian]

67. I don't alert, but I don't think you should use rapist and pedophile describing Reagan.

[griloco]

68. him 36 her 15. how would you describe him?

Predator?

[griloco]

46. methinks I'll take Liz at her word...

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/284805/Piper-Laurie-I-lost-my-virginity-to-Ronald-Reagan-and-he-was-no-gentleman

[Ed Suspicious]

26. Good lord! Does the Presidency require a casting off of one's humanity?

[Amimnoch]

27. A resurgence of burning hatred of this evil couple.

When these 2 creatures KNEW that there was a virus, and KNEW it was killing people and CHOSE to be silent.. They chose to do nothing.

Across the country, and especially in metropolitan areas, people were dying, not even knowing what the hell it was that was killing them. Many times alone, and afraid.. wasting away in a variety of horrendous ways from opportunistic diseases/conditions that by all logic should not be killing them.

If there is any kind of afterlife, these 2 deserve nothing more than the worst that it has to offer.

I know Hillary has apologized for this.
I know that their administration was the first to really take steps to boost up the funding for research, and promote awareness.
I can understand why Hillary did attend... that woman's.. funeral out of duty and expectation as a living former first lady.
Being that it was a funeral, I even forgive keeping the message positive about this despicable woman..

I want more though. I want an explanation how she could have made such a horrendous gaffe.. Was she really that oblivious to the Reagan complacency in the death of so many?

The primary's over now in my state. I've stopped my monthly donation to her campaign. I still have all the same misgivings about the Sanders campaign, but no longer have the appetite to actively support her.

So.. for the rest of this campaign season.. I'll put my focus and little bit of extra $$ I can muster up to helping get Republicans out of Congress.

[Kensan]

38. Yes, the Clinton administration started to take definitive steps...

but they got an assist. And it came from the greatest point guard of all time, Ervin "Magic" Johnson. When he announced he was retiring due to contracting HIV, it sent shock waves around the world. More than a decade after the first reported cases and tens of thousand dead, it took a famous playboy athlete (who was undoubtedly heterosexual) to really shine a light on this epidemic. Advances in medicines and treatment started receiving much more funding and attention. Different cocktails of drugs were used to slow the advance of the disease in the hopes a more effective cure would be discovered in a few years.

I knew 2 men who died of this disease, both from tainted blood transfusions received after serious auto accidents. They went through an ordeal trying to heal their bodies from the accidents, and both thought they were lucky to be alive. Months later, they were wasting away. Facing their impending deaths (since AIDS was a death sentence at the time), I still recall the stares they would receive in public and the "whispered" comments after you passed by about how they must be gay and deserved their fate.

Both of my friends were happily married, and died in their low 30's leaving behind devastated wives, children and friends. The Reagans and all the ultra-religious folks were cheerleading this disease, since in their twisted minds it validated their views about homosexuality. What they did can never be forgotten, nor can it be white-washed to play "nice" at a solemn occasion.

What Hillary did was inexcusable, and her second attempt at an apology still doesn't address Nancy Reagan's role in this history. Hillary will always play the politician, and won't impugn Nancy's legacy/reputation. Years from now, some f**king elementary school history book will have multiple chapters devoted to all the ways the Reagans saved America, and defeating AIDS will be right after Raygun single-handedly broke the Soviet Union and tore down the Berlin Wall. I wonder what monuments will be left to name after Nancy, since almost everything will have already been named after St. Ronnie of the Fourth Circle of Hell.

[JFKDem62]

30. When Governor of California, Regan closed all the mental institutions in the state and

mentally ill people were literally living in the streets.
It was criminal.

[SusanCalvin]

31. Yep. First he wrecked CA, then the nation.

Much like W and Texas.

[JFKDem62]

32. Yes the death, destruction, misery Reagan/ Bush caused is unbelievable. Now they are seen as saints.

A total disgrace.

[SusanCalvin]

36. True jerks and low-information voters.

Amazing the damage the two together can do.

[JFKDem62]

69. It also illustrates how easily history can be written and people fall for it.

Despite the facts staring them in the face.

[senseandsensibility]

47. No one talks about that

but it did happen.

[Jarqui]

34. Yes, the memories are still there.

Rock Hudson coming out was a big deal in a very homophobic society.

He could have crawled off and died with his reputation in tact. His reputation in the short term took a pretty big hit.

Rock put a famous face on AIDS. When folks found out, suddenly funding took off, celebrities started to take calls to support it, etc. A whole bunch changed for the better in dealing with the disease.

Turning down the above email, joking about AIDS in the White House press conference, etc - it's kind of hard to believe people could be so callous and cruel.

[SusanCalvin]

37. I know him only from his courage in this respect and his movies,

but I really feel he must have been a fine, fine person.

I know Rock Hudson and Doris Day is a cliche, but I *love* those movies.

[madfloridian]

39. Me, too. And I loved Giant with him and Elizabeth Taylor.

AND the late James Dean.

[closeupready]

51. One of my favorite films.

[Jarqui]

70. My mom absolutely loved them too. (heck, she made us all watch them)

And even though I wasn't a gigantic fan, those are pleasant family memories.

I had helped a gay effort in 1974 or so and didn't have the guts to put my name to it. I was well acquainted with some of the issues he must have grappled with and to me, that was his greatest moment - my respect for him grew immensely. His self sacrifice of the reputation of this "image" we all had of him helped a lot of people.

[SusanCalvin]

74. And now his image and reputation are far, far greater.

There's a lesson in there I think.

I appreciate him so much.

[senseandsensibility]

48. But Hill

was only what, 35, at the time? How could she remember that?

[KoKo]

35. Recommend for Truth!

[WillyT]

50. K & R !!!

[RepubliCON-Watch]

52. K & R

[7wo7rees]

53. I had no idea. As an earlier post, chilling.

Heartbreaking. Where is the humanity?
Sick at heart.
Tired of reliving it all......

[Aerows]

54. I try to avoid using profanity

There is no fucking way I could actually express my thoughts without getting myself banned.

Livid doesn't cover it.

Incandescent with rage might get close.

[slipslidingaway]

56. Hillary Clinton, Nancy Reagan, and AIDS

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/hillary-clinton-nancy-reagan-and-aids

"It will take somebody with more psychiatric sophistication than me to figure out how Hillary Clinton could have come to praise Ronald and Nancy Reagan, as she initially did earlier today, for having started the American conversation about AIDS “when, before, nobody talked about it.”

President Reagan’s first speech on the subject wasn’t until May 31, 1987. By then, more than twenty-five thousand people, the majority of them gay men, had died in the United States. His Administration ridiculed people with AIDS—his spokesman, Larry Speakes, made jokes about them at press conferences—and while I do think it rude to speak ill of the dead, particularly on the day of a funeral, this issue cannot be ignored. Nancy Reagan refused to act in any way in 1985 to help her friend Rock Hudson when he was in Paris dying of AIDS. (Last year, Buzzfeed published documents that make this clear.)


.....In the end, as Clinton wrote, Nancy Reagan was indeed “strong” on stem-cell research and on Alzheimer’s disease. Her conversion came when her husband plunged into the darkness of the disease. She was desperate, and would have done anything for him. It was a deeply admirable stance, and rare in her conservative world. Millions of other people, however, would surely have benefitted from that kind of support—had she offered it when her husband was capable of doing something to help alleviate so much suffering."

[Enthusiast]

73. Kicked and recommended!