Chancellor Thanks Reagan for Sticking With Visit to Bitburg

West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl today thanked President Reagan for going ahead with plans to lay a wreath at Bitburg military cemetery, calling the move the “noble gesture of a friend,” as the White House ducked questions about the trip.

“We are not answering Bitburg questions; there has been no change in the President’s plans,” presidential spokesman Larry Speakes said of the scheduled May 5 visit that has embroiled the White House in controversy. The cemetery contains the graves of 2,000 German war dead, including 47 Nazi SS troops.

Another White House official, who frequently speaks to reporters anonymously, declined to go beyond Speakes’ comments even without being identified.

Reagan himself, who sometimes talks about subjects his aides shun, turned aside a reporter’s question about whether he is considering changing his plans.

Holding up a plaque that he had been given by a group of youthful volunteers at a Rose Garden ceremony, he said, “I’m just considering putting this on my desk.”

Silent on Wick Comment

Speakes declined to say whether Reagan had been in touch with his U.S. Information Agency director and close friend, Charles Z. Wick, about a Washington Post interview quoting Wick as calling the Bitburg visit “a tragedy.”

“I don’t want to comment,” he said.

Kohl thanked Reagan for going ahead with the visit in a speech to the West German Parliament in Bonn, calling it the “noble gesture of a friend” and adding, “I deeply regret that this great man who is a friend of the Germans, because of his noble conviction, must accept considerable political difficulties in the United States.”

“As a German and a German chancellor, I will say, I am thankful to him for this conviction,” he added.

Kohl had earlier delivered a 70-minute speech on domestic problems without mentioning the Bitburg controversy.

Criticism in Parliament

But he returned to the podium after opposition Social Democratic leader Hans-Jochen Vogel sharply criticized Kohl’s handling of preparations for the Reagan visit. Kohl has caused “one embarrassment after another,” Vogel complained.

A number of Jewish organizations, concentration camp survivors and veterans’ groups have expressed outrage at Reagan’s plans.

An Administration official said privately Wednesday that Reagan tried to talk his way out of the cemetery visit during a telephone conversation with Kohl last Friday but that the chancellor was adamant that Bitburg remain on their joint schedule. (Story on Page 6.)

Also today, the West German Parliament soundly defeated a motion that Reagan cancel his Bitburg visit.

Only 24 of the 422 members of the Bundestag present voted for the motion, which was introduced by the Greens.