Mixed Reviews for the New Man

By George Russell

Kohl inspires confidence abroad but raises worries at home

Like Ronald Reagan, he is a folksy, conservative politician with an easygoing, leisurely work style. But last week, West Germany's newly chosen Chancellor Helmut Kohl, 52, was behaving like a man without a moment to lose. Within three hours of taking over the glass-and-steel Bonn Chancellery from Social Democrat Helmut Schmidt, the Christian Democratic leader had sworn in a new 17-member Cabinet, chaired his first Cabinet meeting, held a press conference and jetted off to Paris for a hastily arranged get-acquainted dinner with his most important Western European partner, French President Franc,ois Mitterrand. Kohl's Foreign Minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, hopped another jetliner for New York City, where he sat down for preliminary talks with U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko at the United Nations. The aim of all of this brisk activity was nothing less, in Kohl's words, than "to demonstrate to the world the continuity and viability of the West German government."

The main question for Kohl is whether or not he will be allowed to lead that government for long. After ending 13 years of Social Democratic coalition rule on Oct. 1 by toppling Schmidt in a Bundestag no-confidence vote, Kohl and his center-right coalition of the Christian Democrat/Christian Social Union (C.D.U./C.S.U.) and the Free Democratic Party (F.D.P.) have all but promised to hold elections by March 6 that could toss the newcomers out of office.

From the moment he was sworn in as Chancellor, Kohl tried to assure West Germans that he would continue the foreign policies of Schmidt's government, including support for the installation of U.S. intermediate-range nuclear missiles in the country. "The Americans are our most important partners and allies," he told the press conference, but then quickly added that the transatlantic relationship means "friendship and partnership, not dependency." Kohl gave a critical edge to that remark by referring to the gas pipeline from the Soviet Union that a consortium of Western European nations is financing and building despite the protests of the Reagan Administration. The Chancellor coolly alluded to the fact that the U.S. was still selling grain to the Soviets while leveling sanctions against European firms that were working on the pipeline. Said he: "One should not demand of the other what one would not like to have demanded of oneself." Kohl also reaffirmed West Germany's longstanding trade relations with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and said that he would like to meet with his opposite number in East Germany, Communist Party Chief Erich Honecker, "at the earliest good opportunity."

Kohl actually cut short the press conference to dash off to his meeting with Mitterrand, arranged only a day earlier at the West German's behest. Conversing through interpreters (Kohl speaks no foreign language and Mitterrand's German is uncertain), the two men hit it off as they discussed what the President later called "general lines of the politics of the two countries." One French official's favorable impression of Kohl: "Agile, chatty and a Francophile." Said another: "He looks as if he's been meeting heads of state all his life." The two leaders will talk again at a regularly scheduled bilateral summit meeting in Bonn on Oct. 21 to discuss specific issues.

While Kohl plans to maintain much of his predecessor's foreign policy, he has vowed to make important changes in West Germany's economic policy. Kohl's biggest problem is the West German economy, long known as the "locomotive" of Western Europe. Precious little steam is left in that engine. Last year the rate of West German economic growth declined by .3%, compared with a 4.4% increase in 1979. Unemployment is up to 7.5%, a dramatic 45% jump over the previous year. About 1.8 million West German workers are out of work, and that figure could climb to 2.5 million by next February. According to Hans-Juergen Schmahl of the Hamburg Institute of Economic Research, the country's current 4.9% inflation rate could drop to less than 4% during the same time. But, says Schmahl, "that is one success. I can't find any others."

The new government's long-term goal is to restore prosperity by cutting taxes for business and pruning the ballooning social welfare expenditures that expanded from $15 billion in 1960 to $250 billion in 1981. Many of the welfare cuts will be formally unveiled this week in Kohl's inaugural "State of the Nation" speech to the Bundestag. One scheme: a six-month delay, from January to July, of a scheduled 5.6% hike in old-age pension benefits. Kohl also wants a 1% increase in West Germany's value-added tax, raising the figure to 14%.

In addition, Kohl proposes a onetime compulsory "loan" to the government from single taxpayers earning more than $20,000 and from couples making more than $40,000.

The loans would amount to 5% of assessed tax liability and would be repaid, without interest, between 1987 and 1989. According to Kohl's government, the entire package would trim $5.6 billion from the government's anticipated 1983 deficit of $16 billion.

The new regime had still more bad news for workers: a proposal for a six-month freeze on wage increases to match the delay in old-age pension hikes. Said new Labor Minister Norbert Bluem: "What is demanded from widows cannot escape wage negotiators."

Bluem's suggestion was greeted with rage by labor leaders, who were not assuaged by the fact that Kohl and his Cabinet members have promised to take a 5% cut in salary. Union leaders closeted themselves with the new Chancellor after he returned from France for what was described by a union aide as an afternoon of "economic swordplay." Ernst Breit, leader of the country's 8 million-member German Trade Union Confederation termed the wage-freeze idea "totally unnegotiable." Even among pro-business spokesmen, who generally support Kohl, the wage-freeze idea was greeted with trepidation. Rolf Rodenstock, president of the Cologne-based Federation of German Industry, feared the plan would undermine public confidence. Said he: "I believe it is not a pillar of wisdom."

Kohl is also expected to ignite a controversy by tackling one of West Germany's most touchy social issues: the fate of some 1.6 million Turkish Gastarbetter (guest workers) in the country. The Turks are the country's largest single foreign minority; most of them entered West Germany during the booming 1950s and 1960s, when there was a desperate shortage of labor. Now they are widely criticized for taking jobs away from West Germans or, conversely, consuming welfare benefits. Kohl has already warned that "the number of foreigners cannot remain at its current level." The Schmidt government tried and failed to persuade many of the Turks to return home; in all likelihood, the new government will offer additional economic inducements with the same aim. Nonetheless, any attempt to displace the guest workers is bound to cause an outcry from the Turks as well as introduce a troubling note of racism into the domestic debate.

Significantly, Kohl has agreed to appoint Friedrich Zimmermann, 57, his Interior Minister. Zimmermann is a conservative long known for his anti-immigration and anti environmentalist views. His name was put forward for the job by Franz Josef Strauss, the abrasive head of the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party to the C.D.U.* The Interior Minister's appointment has already raised protests from a wide range of left-wing groups, including the Greens, the growing third force in West German politics, who recently won 8% of the vote in local elections in the industrial state of Hesse. A loose confederation built around environmentalist groups, the Greens include organizations that are vociferously opposed to all forms of atomic power in West Germany and to the presence of U.S. nuclear warheads on local soil. The Greens fear that Zimmermann's appointment presages a crackdown on the massive antinuclear demonstrations that have blossomed across the country in the past year. Green Spokesman Lucas Beckmann last week called Zimmermann's appointment "a scandal."

When Kohl took office, he said he intended to head "a government of the middle ground." The main challenge he faces between now and March will be to keep to that course. If he fails, the risk is that the Greens may replace his minority partner Free Democrats as the swing party in the promised elections. If that happens, West Germany, already involved in what one veteran diplomat in Bonn calls "a period of unprecedented political, economic and emotional turmoil," could face even worse upheaval. --By George Russell.

Reported by Gary Lee and John Moody/Bonn

* The division of Cabinet seats among coalition members: Christian Democrats, 9; Christian Social Union, 4; Free Democrats, 4.

With reporting by Gary Lee, John Moody

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