PRESIDENT Bill Clinton brought Dr Helmut Kohl to tears yesterday when he evoked the German Chancellor's childhood memories of the way the US helped rebuild his war shattered country.
Dr Kohl struggling vainly to hold back his emotions as Mr Clinton, in a speech marking the 50th anniversary of the Marshall Plan, cited him as the spirit of Europe's rebirth.
"For a teenage boy in Germany, Marshall aid was the generous hand that helped lift his homeland from the ruinous past. He still recalls American trucks driving on to the schoolyard, bringing soup that warmed hands and hearts," Mr Clinton said.
"That boy grew up to be a passionate champion of freedom and unity in Europe, a great and cherished friend of America. He became the first chancellor of a free and unified Germany. Helmut Kohl has come to symbolise both the substance and spirit of the Marshall Plan," Mr Clinton said.
Earlier the United States urged western Europe to embrace the emerging democracies and markets of the former Soviet bloc to further the cause of European security, stability and trade.
Attending a twice yearly summit with EU leaders, Mr Clinton said more private investment needed to be pumped into east Europe to build on already substantial western aid.
Amid security unprecedented in the Netherlands, President Clinton and a host of European leaders met to commemorate the plan proposed in 1947 by the then secretary of state, George Marshall.
"This meeting between the United States and the European Union is a symbol of how we're fulfilling the real dream and promise of the Marshall Plan," Mr Clinton told reporters. "The Marshall Plan... was open to all of Europe but for half the continent the dream of recovery was denied," he told a palace lunch hosted by Queen Beatrix.
Western leaders were "trustees of history's rarest gift, a second chance to complete the job that Marshall... began", he said.
Mr Clinton, the Dutch Prime Minister, Mr Wim Kok, and the European Commission President, Mr Jacques, Santer, stopped short of announcing a second Marshall Plan, but urged greater efforts at integration. "We can't simply say to those countries [in eastern Europe]: `We want you to be free democracies, we want you to have economic reform and good luck'," said Mr Clinton, adding that work needed to be done with individual countries to see what sort of fresh action was necessary.
Mr Clinton, noting that a more prosperous and united Europe would be a stronger partner for the US, was noncommittal on plans for European monetary union, saying only that European integration was good for all.
The US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, said Washington was keen to see the EU expand as rapidly and widely as possible. In an article for the International Herald Tribune, she urged people to stop talking of the "Eastern bloc" as if the Soviet dominated Warsaw Pact military alliance still existed.
Mr Clinton, accompanied by his wife, Mrs Hillary Rodham Clinton, brought tight security to The Hague but delighted onlookers with an impromptu 10 minute canal side walkabout on his way to the palace.
The President's trip was, however, overshadowed by a US Supreme Court decision on Tuesday to let a sexual harassment lawsuit brought against him by Ms Paula Jones go ahead.
"I really have nothing to add to what [his lawyer] Robert Bennett said. The Supreme Court has made its decision," President Clinton told reporters in his first public comment on the ruling.
. Ireland was represented by the Minister of State for European Affairs, Mr Gay Mitchell.