Bush Salutes Kohl in Campaign Boost for German Leader : Diplomacy: The President doesn’t quarrel with the chancellor’s call for seeking a diplomatic solution in gulf.

President Bush on Sunday returned briefly to the campaign trail--international style. En route to the Paris summit, he stopped here briefly to praise Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who faces a key election in two weeks, as “the man who united Germany.”

And Bush, who has ordered a dramatic escalation of the U.S. military commitment in the Persian Gulf as a signal of resolve against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, did not quarrel with Kohl’s reassertion of the need to pursue all possible diplomatic options. The two leaders are “on the same wavelength,” the President said.

Bush’s appearance, a 5 1/2-hour visit after an overnight stop in Prague, was carefully designed by German officials to showcase Kohl as a world leader. White House aides had wanted Bush to visit Berlin during his current European tour, but Kohl’s aides insisted on a visit to this, his hometown, U.S. officials said.

Kohl, who is almost certain to win reelection in the Dec. 2 voting, has been making a point of demonstrating that, as the leader of the newly united Germany, he is sufficiently important that major world figures are willing to travel to this somewhat off-the-beaten-track town to talk with him at his home.

Last week, for example, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev made the visit. And the Soviet leader’s visit followed a script quite similar to that of Bush, right down to the organ music--Bach’s Tocata and Fugue in D Minor--that both men heard when visiting the 11th-Century cathedral in the city of Speyer, not far from here.

The main difference between the two visits was security. While Gorbachev walked the streets of Speyer with relatively little protection, Bush’s visit was the subject of unusually tight precautions, as was also true in Bush’s visit to Prague.

The precautions were not without reason. Since April, German political figures have been the targets of three assassination attempts, the latest of which left Kohl’s interior minister partially paralyzed. An earlier incident left Kohl’s chief political opponent, Social Democrat Oskar Lafontaine, near death after a mentally disturbed woman slashed his throat at a political rally.

In addition, U.S. officials have been wary of increased terrorist threats because of the confrontation with Iraq.

Despite the security, a large and friendly crowd of several thousand greeted Bush at Speyer, where the President praised Kohl as a “great chancellor” and thanked him for his support of U.S.-led efforts against Iraq. Germany has pledged roughly $2 billion to help pay the costs of the anti-Iraq effort but has declined to send troops, citing limits on overseas troop movements put into its constitution after World War II.

With rain threatening to soak his audience in the town square--and Kohl gesturing agitatedly for an aide to give Bush an umbrella--the President tossed aside most of his speech, including a passage that would have called on Germany to “take responsibility for leadership in our commonwealth of nations.”

Kohl, for his part, praised Bush and the United States, saying that German unity “would not have been possible, indeed, would have been inconceivable, without the help and support we received from Americans.”

After visiting the medieval cathedral, the two leaders went to Kohl’s home for lunch in this drowsy suburb on the banks of the Rhine.

Curious neighbors peeked through their lace curtains at the press stampede down their modest street, while police kept a few dozen spectators behind barricades at the top of the block.

Kohl joked about the nasty weather, noting that it did not reflect the climate of relations between the two countries.

“In Germany, unfortunately, November means rain,” the chancellor said as the two emerged after nearly three hours of talks inside Kohl’s gray and white house.

While there, Kohl treated Bush to some of his regional German luncheon favorites--stuffed sow belly, warm blood sausage and liver dumplings.

Asked repeatedly by German and American reporters whether the Bushes ate the stuffed sow belly--a particular favorite of Kohl’s--the chancellor’s spokesman, Hans Klein said, “Yes, and it wasn’t the first time.

“I’ll tell you a little secret,” he confided. “Sometimes, Chancellor Kohl sends President Bush packages of sausage from this region, and these often contain saumagen. “

He said he didn’t know what treats Bush sends Kohl in return.

After the repast, the leaders discussed the Persian Gulf crisis, current international trade talks and aid for the Soviet Union, according to Klein and White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater. Bush, afterward, called the meeting “terrific,” Fitzwater said.

“They discussed joint help for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe this coming winter, when the situation is acute,” Klein said. “They agreed we must be ready to support reforms in the Soviet Union with food and consumer goods.

“Chancellor Kohl said that Germany cannot solve problems of these dimensions alone,” Klein added. Germany already has sent millions of marks worth of food and aid to the Soviet Union and has pledged to spend 1 billion marks ($700 million) over the next four years to help build housing for the estimated 300,000 Soviet troops returning home from duty in what used to be East Germany.

Fitzwater said Bush generally agreed on the need to help the Soviets but had no specific new aid proposals in mind.

On the Persian Gulf, Klein and Fitzwater each said separately that Bush did not ask for more German involvement in the gulf and that he is well aware of Kohl’s support for constitutional changes that would clearly permit Germany to deploy troops outside the North Atlantic Treaty Organization theater.

In a radio speech shortly before Bush’s arrival, Kohl called for caution in considering using military force against Iraq. “Anyone who believes that this can be solved militarily must think of the end, not the beginning” and “what the consequences may be,” Kohl said. Bush read excerpts of Kohl’s speech before meeting with the chancellor and had “no problem” with it, Fitzwater said. “We’re on the same wavelength,” he added.

On the trade talks, Fitzwater quoted Bush as saying the two men made “progress” but offered no specifics. In keeping with their desire to help Kohl politically, U.S. officials said that Bush planned to avoid pressing Kohl to make any public statement on trade until after the December elections.