VATICAN CITY – President Bush and two of his White House predecessors knelt in silent tribute yesterday before Pope John II’s body in St. Peter’s Basilica.

The three made a beeline for the Vatican in their motorcade after an eight-hour flight from Washington. They are leading an American delegation that also includes first lady Laura Bush and Secretary of State Rice here for the pope’s funeral Friday.

The American party took its place at a wooden railing on one side of John Paul’s bier, as hundreds of mourners filed by on the other side. The line was briefly stopped on the side of the American visitors.

They knelt for about five minutes, heads bowed, as choral music filled the huge structure.

“The man knows how to build a crowd,” President Clinton told reporters earlier aboard Air Force One, expressing deep respect for the pope’s political abilities as he traveled around the world.

“I found him a very complete person,” Mr. Clinton added.

Said the first President Bush, the current president’s father: “He was a man of peace, he was unforgettable.”

At the same time, both former presidents recalled disputes they had with the pope of the past 26 years – Mr. Bush and the pope over the war in Iraq and Mr. Clinton with him over social issues such as abortion rights.

George W. Bush is the first sitting American president to attend papal burial rites. He was to have meetings today with Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi and Italian President Ciampi, including a private dinner with Mr. Berlusconi. Mr. Bush planned no public remarks.

Relations between America and Italy were strained last month when American troops in Iraq fired on a car rushing an Italian journalist to freedom, killing the Italian intelligence officer who helped negotiate her release and wounding the reporter.

Mr. Berlusconi denounced the attack and announced plans to start to draw down his country’s 3,000-strong contingent in Iraq in September.

Hundreds of thousands of people have viewed the pope’s remains since Monday.

The former President Bush told reporters traveling with the delegation aboard Air Force One that he met the pope when he was vice president, bringing his son, Jeb, a converted Catholic, along for the visit.

Though he and the pope had disagreed sharply on the Persian Gulf War, with the pope sending him a cable opposing the invasion of Kuwait, the elder Mr. Bush said he wished he had had time to discuss with the pope the notion of a “just war,” which the pope had supported.

“Because clearly I thought it was” just, Mr. Bush said. He said he guessed the pope would have told him the opposite.

Mr. Clinton, talking separately with reporters on the plane, said the pope had demonstrated support for NATO actions to end genocide in Bosnia and Kosovo.

“I think he favored defensive wars, if you will, or wars in defense of innocent people being slaughtered,” Mr. Clinton said. “I think that he thought you shouldn’t initiate wars, even against oppressive leaders, unless there was some immediate human tragedy pending.

“He was clearly a man of God. He played a role in hastening the end of communism in Central Europe. And he was a consistent voice for human dignity in the face of political oppression and modern materialism,” Mr. Clinton said.

“There will be debates about him. But on balance, he was a man of God, he was a consistent person, he did what he thought was right. That’s about all you can ask of anybody.”

Mr. Clinton said there had been “two great popes” in his lifetime, John Paul II and John XXIII, who died in 1963.

Presidents Carter and Ford were not among the delegation.

Mr. Ford, 91, is in frail health. Mr. Carter had considered coming but declined, according to aides to both Messrs. Bush and Carter.