hTabloid publishes images of future queen giving Nazi salute

hTabloid publishes images of future queen giving Nazi salute

LONDON

Buckingham Palace expressed its disappointment Saturday with a tabloid newspaper for publishing images of a young Queen Elizabeth II performing a Nazi salute with her family in 1933, the year Adolf Hitler came to power.

The palace took the unusual step of commenting on the report in The Sun newspaper, which shows the queen – then about 7 years old – at the family home in Balmoral, with her uncle Edward, mother and sister. The grainy footage also shows Elizabeth’s mother making the salute as the family laughs.

“It is disappointing that film, shot eight decades ago and apparently from Her Majesty’s personal family archive, has been obtained and exploited in this manner,” the palace said.

The images, posted on the newspaper’s website under the headline “Their Royal Heilnesses,” shows the young girls prancing on the grass.

Military historian James Holland told The Sun that the royals were joking.

“I don’t think there was a child in Britain in the 1930s or ’40s who has not performed a mock Nazi salute as a bit of a lark,” he was quoted as saying.

The queen’s former press secretary, Dickie Arbiter, said the royals would be relaxed about the release of the film given the context in which it was shot – and given that the monarch’s parents took a fierce anti-Nazi stand during World War II. But he said they would be angry about how the newspaper obtained what is essentially a home movie. He noted that the true extent of Nazism’s evils became known only later.

The Sun’s managing editor, Stig Abell, said the footage was obtained legitimately.

Trump blasts McCain

AMES, IOWA

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump criticized Sen. John McCain’s military record at a conservative forum Saturday, saying the party’s 2008 nominee was a “war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

The comment drew some boos from the audience – and quick condemnation from rivals who have been waiting for such an opening to rein in the outspoken reality- television personality. Trump has surged in polls recently, frustrating many in his party who fear that he could hurt the GOP with his comments about immigrants.

Trump and McCain, R-Ariz., traded barbs earlier this week. McCain said Trump’s controversial comments about immigrants had “fired up the crazies” at a rally in Phoenix. Trump retorted that the Arizona Republican was “a dummy” who graduated at the bottom of his class at the U.S. Naval Academy.

McCain’s war record was a cornerstone of his 2008 bid for president. A Navy pilot during the Vietnam War, he was captured after his plane was shot down. He was held for more than five years as a prisoner of war.

On Saturday, speaking at a conference of religious conservatives, Trump was pressed on his description of McCain as “a dummy.” The moderator, Republican pollster Frank Luntz, described McCain as “a war hero.”

“He’s not a war hero,” Trump said. “He is a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

During a news conference after his appearance at the Family Leader Summit, Trump sought to clarify his remarks.

“If a person is captured, they’re a hero as far as I’m concerned. ... But you have to do other things also,” Trump said. “I don’t like the job John McCain is doing in the Senate because he is not taking care of our veterans.”

A spokesman for McCain, Brian Rogers, had no comment when asked about Trump’s remarks.

Associated Press