Clinton Sings Praises of a Besieged Kohl

In what could have been a campaign speech for beleaguered German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, President Clinton praised Europe’s longest-serving leader Wednesday for making the continent’s stunning transition possible and urged its other leaders to stay on his course.

“This magic moment in history did not simply arrive,” Clinton said in an address at the Schauspielhaus, the famed opera house that once was on the Communist side of the Berlin Wall. “It was made, and made largely by the vision and determined leadership of Germany and its chancellor for nine years.”

Kohl--who faces an uphill battle against challenger Gerhard Schroeder, standard-bearer of the Social Democrats, in elections in September--appeared to be moved by Clinton’s remarks. The German chancellor has seen his popularity crumble as he has pushed to reunify eastern and western Germany and promote European monetary union.

The accolades started during the leaders’ joint remarks to the media in the garden at Sans Souci, the 18th century summer palace of Frederick the Great in Potsdam. “I believe Europe has come so far in so little time in no small measure because of your leadership for German unification, for European monetary union, for freedom in free markets and an undivided, democratic Europe at peace,” Clinton said as he stood beside Kohl in the warm sun.

Clinton had a message for Germans who have lost faith in their leader as they have faced economic troubles--such as an unemployment rate of 13%--that have come with those changes. “Though many German citizens may be uncertain of the courageous course, you are clearly on the right side of history,” Clinton said at the opera house.

White House officials said Clinton intended to offer tribute to one of the biggest supporters of his foreign policy objectives through the years--from democratic reform in Russia to expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. But they stressed that Clinton was not seeking to influence the outcome of the German election.

“The German people are not going to vote for anybody because of the fact that the president has a strong, warm relationship with him,” one senior foreign policy advisor said, adding, “Clinton did not say Kohl can do this and the other guy can’t.”

This was not the first time Clinton has visited a foreign leader he admires at a delicate political moment--and heaped on the praise. He traveled to Russia and offered acclaim for President Boris N. Yeltsin before he won reelection in the summer of 1996. A similar visit a year ago to Mexico, however, did not help President Ernesto Zedillo, whose Institutional Revolutionary Party lost parliamentary elections for the first time in decades.

On the first day of his six-day European visit--which includes a weekend summit in Birmingham, England, of the Group of 7 leading industrial nations and Russia, the so-called Group of 8--Clinton was effusive about Kohl, his longtime political ally and dining buddy. Given the American president’s popularity in Germany, the tribute could not have hurt Kohl.

White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry conceded that Clinton’s praise reflected his deep appreciation for Kohl’s long role in world diplomacy. “We leave the political decisions that the people of Germany have to make to the people of Germany,” McCurry said. “But it’s not a surprise that the president would pay tribute to a leader that he has grown to respect a great deal and someone that he’s grown personally fond of as well.”

McCurry stressed that Clinton had a “very good” initial meeting and discussion with Schroeder on Wednesday.