'47 SOVIET-BLOC BID TO RECRUIT WALDHEIM AS AGENT DESCRIBED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-01208R000100130003-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 2, 2011
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: October 30, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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WASHINGTON POST
30 October 1986
'47 Soviet-Bloc Bid
To Recruit Waldheim.
As Agent Described
By Dusko Doder
Washington Post Staff Writer
In the winter of 1947-48, the Yu-
goslav and Soviet intelligence ser=
vices attempted to blackmail Kurt
Waldheim into becoming a commu-
nist agent by threatening to charge
him with war crimes, according to
several former Yugoslav intelli-
gence and government officials.
These officials said in? separate
interviews in Belgrade last month
that the Yugoslav secret police
compiled a ossfer' allegations
against Waldheim, who served as an
intelligence officer with German-
forces in the Balkans from 1942 to
1945.'
The senior Yugoslav intelligence
agent in Vienna in 1947-48, Anton_
Kolendic, asserted that he had
planned to use this material in a_
"joint" action with Soviet intelli-.
gence agents to recruit Waldheim.
Kolen is sat he a turne ald-
helm's-`file overr to- ovfet intelli-
gence agents and that.he was "ab-
so1uttely ccertain" that the Russians
had rh eiT~ie approaa.-~--
Another former senior official of
the Yugoslav intelligence service
who asked not to be identified said
that the Soviets in early 1948 a
advised the Yugoslavs that al -
heim had been recruited and asked
the Yugoslavs to stop urt er inter-
ference in the matter. But The
Washin ton Post could not establish
independently that a efm was
ever recruited by the Soviets or the
serted through his spokesman,
Gerold Christian, that "no such at-
tempt perceivable to Mr. Waldheim
was made."
"Mr. Waldheim was never ap-
proached by any country in a man-
ner implied by the question," Chris-
tian said in a telephone conversa-
tion. The spokesman, answering
questions that were submitted ear-
lier, said that Waldheim first
learned that he-- had been indicted
for war crimes by the Yugoslav war
crimes commission from news re-
ports "at the end of March of this
year." That same month he learned
that his name was placed in 1948 on
the United Nations' list of wanted
war criminals, Christian said.
Present and former U.S. intelli-
gence officials, when informed
about the allegations against Wald-
heim made by the former Yugoslav
officials, said there had been talk in
the past inside the U.S. government
about the possibility that Waldheim
had a special relationship with the
? Soviets. But they said they, knew of
no evidence to substantiate such
speculation.
Former Yugoslav intelligence .
officers, now all comfortably re-
.tired, appeared to recall vividly de-
tails of an old operation that in-
volved plans to blackmail Waldheim,
who served after' World War 11 as
personal secretary to Austrian For-
eign Minister Karl Gruber. An anti-
Nazi, Gruber is unlikely to have
hired an accused Nazi war criminal
as an assistant.
The former officials who an-
swered questions about Waldheim
4ppeared to feel that the passage of
time and their current obscurity
permitted them to discuss the sub-
ject, which stirred up old anti-Nazi
emotions. However, several other -
former Yugoslav intelligence offi-
cers who might have shed more
light on the Waldheim case declined
to talk or could not be located dur-
ing a recent two-week visit to Yu-
crimes described it as legally unper-
suasive, and suggested that it could
have been drawn up with the pur-
pose of trying to blackmail Wald-
heim. This view is supported by an
examination of the document, which
was obtained by The Post.
Asked to comment on the alle-
gation that he was recruited as a?
Soviet or Yugoslav agent; Wald-
heim, now president of Austria, as-
Yu os ays.
One of the former officials who
said he was familiar with the Wald-
heim file compiled by the Yugoslavs
Kolendic, who was the head of
Yugoslav intelligence in Vienna af-
ter the war, said he was directly
involved in the Yugoslav attempt to
compromise Waldheim. At the time,
Kolendic said in an interview, he
was formally listed as deputy chief
of the Yugoslav military mission in
Austria.
STAT
In the second half of December
1947, he said, "I received a list of
24 names of German war criminals
along with the copies of files on
them that were being sent to the
U.N. Commission on War Crimes in
London [which was assembling a
central registry of accused war
criminals]. Waldheim's name was
fourth, on the list and was under-
lined. He was described as an offi-
cial of the Austrian Foreign Minis-
try.
"I looked carefully through his
file because it was unusually de-
tailed. We have had such lists and
files coming all the time, but in the"
vast majority of cases, documen-
tation was short and. weak. We did
not have such a well-documented
file before; at least I don't remem-
ber seeing one."
Alon with the files Kolendic
said he and his deput , Vasiliie
Kovacevrc, receive d instructions to
recruit a erm, o endic sai
he an ovacevrc ecr e o o is
loinwd t e uss a~ s. He
a 4F
tat e a cooperated with
Soviet mtellr ence operatives andin
particu ar wit aol onda - i
gave the Waldheim file to Gonda "
~he sai . -
When challenged about his asser-
tion that he was "absolutely certain"
that the Russians had approached
Waldheim, Kolendic said: "When
you are in the intelligence business,
you have a way of knowing such
-things. I dealt with Gonda regularly
and we became quite friendly."
"We worked closely with the Rus-
sians," he continued. "We would give
them the names of people we wanted
and they-in most cases-delivered
them. Our enemies [anticommunist
Yugoslavs] were fleeing into the
American and British zones."
According to another former in-
telligence operative who held the
rank of colonel in the Yugoslav se-
cret police at the time, the Soviets
in early 1948 told a Yugoslav intel-
ligence liaison officer named Cola
Boro Leontic that "Waldheim was
recruited and that the Yugoslavs-
should stop their interference."
Leontic could not be located in Yu-
goslavia.
An official indictment accusing
Waldheim of war crimes was a po-
tent weapon for any intelligence of-
ficer in postwar, anti-Nazi Vienna,
J.1
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Kolendic said. When Waldheim was
confronted with it, he "must have
been' terrified," Kolendic said. He
described the atmosphere in Vien=
na, which in 1947 and 1948 was in-
side the Soviet occupation zone, al-
though the city itself was under
four-power occupation.
"It was the time of 'The Third
Man.' The Orson Welles movie was
set precisely at that time. Assassi-
nations and kidnapings were com-
mon occurrences in Vienna."
In 1947, Kolendic said, Soviet in-
telli ence suddenly began to recruit -
people in large numbers. "At t at
point they realized the weakness of
the Austrian communists. Their po-
litical positions were eroding rap-
idly although they were still in the
government. But the Russians fig-
.ured that they could not count on
this situation to continue for a long
time and therefore. began approach-
ing people from the bourgeois par-
ties. They could recruit people by,
say, facilitating the return of your,
son from a Soviet POW camp; or-by
giving food or other favors; or. by
blackmail.
"They were articular) angry
with [Austrian Foreign mister
Gruber. whom they considered o
be a British agent-not merely a
British sympathizer but an agent. I
heard Gonda and other Soviet of-
ficers, including genera s, to
about an incident that could be
staged to eliminate Gruber. Hence
their interest in Waldheim, w o was
Gruber's secretary, working in
Gruber's office. Don't forget, these
were Stalin's intelligence agents.
am .absolute) certain that Wald-
heim was recruite at t att tim
Another former official who
_serve as a personal aide to the late
Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito.
be morn in the s indicated
that a eim was turn over fo
Soviet intelligence. "We-had to give
him tote Russians,- Ems former
official said. " e were an anpend-
a e of the Soviet Union at the time
[in 1947-481 although we were nev-
eravounarvsaeie.
Another former intelligence
a ent w o serve as a personal
aide to Slobodanenezic epilt to
Yugoslav secret police chief Alex-
ander Rankovic~sai- t e in is ment
was-prepared after Yu os av intel-
ligence discovered that a elm
s workin as Gru ers secre ary
and "Rankovic decided a we
should try to recruit him
"That was not difficult in those
days," he' continued. "You show
your victim the document [such as
the formal charge of war crimes].
but then you tell him everything
would be fine, you'd protect him
provided he would do something for
you in return. And that was 1947.
You have'to feel the atmosphere of
that year. War crime trials were
still going on, people were afraid
This source, - however, contra-
dicted Kolendic's assertion that the
Yugoslav police had never at-
tempted to recruit Waldheim. He
said he had seen memoranda of con-
versations that Kolendic sent to
Belgrade about his talks with Wald-
heim and with Gonda, the Soviet
agent. Kolendic declined to meet a
reporter a second 'time to discuss
this source's recollection.
Waldheim was recommended to
Gruber as a possible member of the
new Austrian Foreigd Ministry staff
by a man with impeccable anti-Nazi
credentials, Fritz Molden, publisher
of the Viennese daily Die Presse.
Molden had been the liaison be-
tween the Austrian underground
and the Allies, and he was the son-
in-law of the American master spy
Allen Dulles.
Had Waldheim disclosed his three
years of wartime service in the
Balkans as an intelligence officer in
a
on t
at Waldheim
the-_Wehrmacht High Command for was employed in Gruber's office at
Southeast, he most likely would not the Austrian Foreign Ministry.
have been as ey Gruber, a _ Another document in the Wald.
lea II o It e Austrian resistance. helm file adds weight to the theory
Waldheim claimed that he had been that it may have been assembled to
medically discharged from the blackmail him. It is a Dec. 12, 1947,
Wehrmacht in December 1941, af- note from a war crimes commission
ter a grenade splintered his ankle investigator to the Yugoslav For=
on the Russian front, and spent the eign Ministry describing charges
rest of the war with his law books in against Waldheim and identifying
Vienna, a story he stuck with until him as an Austrian diplomat who
this year, when he acknowledged "belongs to the entourage of Dr.
that he had remained on active duty Gruber." It adds: "This fact is cer-
until 1945. tainly of considerable value to the
The Yugoslav indictment of De- [Yugoslav Foreign] Ministry."
cember 1947 threatened to expose
his past. The Yugoslavs had man- Moreover, the file, number F
aged to place Waldheim's name on 25572, includes a letter 'written
the list of more than 36,000 war Dec. 18, ? 1947, by Dusan Nedelj-
criminals. compiled. by the United kovic, president of the Yugoslav
Nations Commission on War Crimes war crimes commission, to the Yu-
Yu-
before the commission disbanded in goslav Embassy in London. It ac-
early 1948. Every . U.N. member companied lists of 'war criminals to
state at the time received an index be registered with the U.N. Com-
of the 36,000 names. Austria was mission on War Crimes, which was
still an occupied country at the located in London.
time,- and did not join the United Nedeljkovic wrote: "You should
Nations until 1955. first of all make efforts to register
Bolendic' direct superior in Bel- Waldheim, reason being that the
grade, Slavko Odic, would not re- evidence is good and the indictment
spon irec wen as a the is fully sufficient, but also because
documents t at passe i es at from another point of view it is es-
the time showed that Waldheim had pecially useful politically."
be
oviet intelli ence.
But Odic indirectly confirmed
that the original Yugoslav indict-
ment against Waldheim was de-
signed to frame him. "All that ev-
idence, all that testimony [in the
1947. Yugoslav indictment] is by
and large.[teg~lly] useless," he said.
In the 194'? indictment, a docu-
ment of more than 4,000 words, the
evidence to. support the charge of
"murder and massacre" against
Waldheim is tenuous. It is based on
the general testimony by seven
German POWs held in Yugoslavia.
Several of them were later exe-
cuted as war criminals.
Waldheim's superior, Lt. Col.
Herbert Warnsdorff, who is also
mentioned in the indictment, was
not accused of war crimes, although
theoretically he should have borne
more responsibility than Waldheim
for the purported crimes. He cur-
rently lives in West Germany.
Another curious aspect of the
document, dated Dec. 18, 1947, is
that it described Waldheim's where-
abouts as "on the run."
As mentioned earlier, Kolendic
received the document from Bel-
grade in the second half of Decem-
ber with the not
ti
h
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The urgency attached to Wald;-
helm's case was all the more inter-
esting given the fact that several
far more significant Nazi ,figures
were on the same list-among
them Konrad Schubert, chief Nazi
political officer in the German Em-
bassy in, Zagreb.
When the rift between Stalin and
Tito became their total preoccupa-
tion in 1948, the Yugoslav secret
police lost interest in Waldheim. "At
that stage we were engaged in the.
struggle for our survival; Ke endic
said. He was recalled to Belgrade in
the summer of 1948 to work in the,
directorate for anti-Soviet propa-
ganda.
Waldheim's diplomatic career-
flourished. He was appointed to the
No. 2 job at the Austrian misssion in
Paris in 1948. and was named chief,
of the Foreign Ministry's personnel..
office in 1951. When Austria re-
gained its independence in 1955,
Waldheim was sent to New York to:
lead the Austrian mission to the
United Nations.' In 1968, he was
appointed foreign minister.
By the time :Waldheim became a
candidate for U.N. secretary gen=
eral in 1971, there were only a few
persons in the Yugoslav elite who
remembered the postwar Waldheim
episode. By then Tito had demol-
ished the orthodox wing of his par-
ty, which was led by secret, police
chief Rankovic. Rankovic was
ousted in 1966 and his entire secu-
rity establishment was subsequent-
ly purged.
If indeed Rankovic had tried to
compromise Waldheim in 1947, did
Tito know about that episode? None
of the former Yugoslav intelligence
officials interviewed for this story
could answer that question with-
certainty. One of his close collab-_.
orators who retained personal ties,':
.4ntil 1ito-sdeath in 1.98Q a" in air,
interview that Tito must have
known about it. "He loved such
things. Don't forget that Tito him-
self was involved in conspiratorial
work [as a Comintern agent]. He.
loved to have information from,
someone on the inside."
Two mere, in Tito's immediate
entourage said in separate inter.
views that. Tito had known about
the compromising aspects of Wald--
heim's. past and that he had re-
garded him as a "Soviet many who
also. had likely ties to the United
States. But, one said, Tito viewed,
him as "a convenient figure for the
U.N. job." Waldheim, one source
quoted Tito,as saying, was a "plix
able" man.
Mirko Milutinovic, Tito's long-
time chief of staff, said in an inter-
view that "I knew that Waldheim
had been compromised." But, Wei
continued, "Tito did not regard'
Waldheim as a war criminal -
though neither Tito, nor any Yugos-
lav at that time, knew about Wakl-
heim's service at Kozara in Bosnia;:
where a massacre took place in
1942, or knew other fresh details of
Waldheim's wartime service that
have come to light this year.
3,
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