Word: kohl
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After the solemnity of the cemetery scene, the mood shifted at the air base, where a German military band played The Star-Spangled Banner and U.S. Air Force musicians followed with the West German national anthem. Reagan and Kohl stood at attention on a raised blue platform before 7,500 spectators, many waving small U.S. and West German flags. Said Kohl: "This walk with the President over the graves of the soldiers was not an easy walk . . . I thank you personally as a friend that you undertook this walk with...
With that ringing flourish the President had completed a simplified but still stirring set of themes: horror at the past, vigilance in the present, hope for the future. Rhetorically, at least, he had approached a highly charged problem with directness and skill. As Reagan and Kohl reboarded Air Force One to return to Bonn, the President's relieved staff applauded both leaders. Said Reagan: "It was a very moving day for all of us, a day of remembrance and hope...
...both political and personal reasons, Kohl was determined to resist changing plans for the Bitburg ceremony. As the first West German Chancellor to spend his entire adult life in the postwar era, he has made a crusade of restoring West Germany to full international legitimacy. To have backed away from Bitburg, in his view, would have been to falter in that quest. The Chancellor was also acutely aware that a change in plans seemingly dictated by Washington would have opened him to a charge of weak leadership. One public- opinion poll taken at the height of the controversy showed...
Reagan's advisers did what they could to distract attention from Bitburg. Shortly after the President's arrival in Bonn, they announced an embargo on trade between the U.S. and the Marxist Sandinista regime of Nicaragua. They also quietly suggested that Kohl was mainly responsible for the Bitburg debacle, even as they publicly insisted that there had been no damage to the close relationship between the two leaders and their countries...
Perhaps inevitably, the recriminations were severest at the staff level, precisely where much of the sloppy work in preparing the trip occurred. One Kohl aide, noting the standard line among U.S. officials that they were "following the wishes of our host," declared acidly: "The White House just told the manure wagon to unload at our back door...