Kohl Arrives in U.S. to See Bush, Reagan, Honor Wiesenthal
West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl arrived Saturday in the United States, where he will be the first head of government to meet President-elect George Bush since the U.S. presidential election and to bid farewell to President Reagan.
But a scandal at home over a speech that forced the resignation of the Speaker of the West German Parliament may overshadow one of the main events of Kohl’s four-day trip. Kohl is to give the keynote address Monday at a New York ceremony marking the 80th birthday of Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, chief of the Jewish documentation center in Vienna.
Philipp Jenninger resigned Friday after protests over a speech he made to Parliament during rites to mark the 50th anniversary of the Kristallnacht anti-Jewish pogrom.
Kohl was visibly disconcerted by the speech, which sounded to many like an apologia for Hitler and the Nazis. It caused 50 members of Parliament to walk out and drew cries of outrage from Jewish communities around the world.
Kohl will go to Washington on Tuesday, where he will be joined by Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher and Defense Minister Rupert Scholz.
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