An Interview with Helmut Kohl

Piped classical music plays softly in the background. A pen-and-ink drawing of Konrad Adenauer, West Germany's first postwar Chancellor, hangs in solitary prominence on one wall. Outside the office of the present Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, gardeners, mow the lawn and vacuum the leaves shed by the towering oak trees that screen the building from the Rhine near by. In an interview with Time Inc. Editor in Chief Henry Anatole Grunwald and TIME Bonn Bureau Chief Roland Flamini last week, his first interview with a U.S. publication since taking office, Kohl spoke of his strong personal commitment to the Atlantic Alliance and...