WALDHEIM'S SECRET LIFE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-01208R000100130014-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 2, 2011
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: April 21, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Approved For Release 2011/03/02 : CIA-RDP90-01208R000100130014-4
1WW TUKIS I1l1L
?NFr,Gr 21 April 1886
ESSAY I William Safire
Waldheim's Secret Life
WASHINGTON
&&W hat I am accused of are
lies," says Kurt Waldheim.
He seems to enjoy call-
ing certain people liars. He once
charged Yehuda Blum, then Israel's
U.N. delegate, with "a palpable false-
hood," but never directed a charge so
undiplomatic as lying against ambas-
sadors of the Soviet bloc or Arab na-
tions, who were the main sources of
his U.N. support.
In truth, Kurt Waldheim's entire
postwar life has been a lie. For 40
years, including a decade undermin-
ing Israel- as the United Nations' top
official, he has pretended to be doing
something else in another place when
Nazis were shipping Jews to Ausch-
witz for extermination and murder-
ing Yugoslav partisan hostages.
If anything can-be labeled a "palpa-
ble falsehood," that lifelong Waldheim
coverup was It. He now admits being
the G-2 officer to a convicted war
criminal and has stopped pleading ig-
norance of the atrocities committed.
How, in the face of his admission of
misleading the world about his Nazi
military past, can he claim to be the
victim of false accusations? Simple:
he ignores the central point of
'coverup he cannot deny, and instead
hires an American public relations
firm to help him complain about lack
of proof of added specific charges not
yet proven.
More details of Nazi involvement
are sure to come, but diplomats are
more interested in this: What nations
knew of his past during his rise to
power? Was he subject to blackmail?
I remember at a Bermuda confer-
ence in the early 70's the American and
British foreign secretaries' discussing
ways to stop Mr. Waldheim's appoint-
ment as Secretary General; to their
embarrassment, through some Soviet
and third-world complicity, Mr. Wald-
heim was pushed through before the
Western alliance could act. It seemed
strange that the Russians went along
so easily with someone not identified
with their bloc.
Was he then an agent of influence?
Certainly the Yugoslavs knew of their
own war-crimes reports accusing the
German staff officer in the Balkans of
complicity in the murder of hostages ;
Marshal Tito certainly had a handle
on Mr. Waldheim. Our C.I.A. evi-
dently failed to compile a dossier for
our use, but. the K.G.B. might not
have been so lax.
Intelligence . agencies are now
Iwalkin g back the cat" recon-
structing events and decisions in light
0 oast and who might have
known and made use of it. An impor-
tant West German business leader
who has pressed for years for trade
with the Soviet Union and is sus-
pected,of a Nazi past will find his ac-
tivities scrutinized more carefully.
A more profound question is being
privately debated by Jewish groups:
Was it wise for the usually soft-line
World Jewish Congress to blow the
whistle on this man at this time? After
all, Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal has
shown unusual lassitude in this case.
Be practical, say some committed
Zionists: the revelations only help.
candidate Waldheim in his quest for
power in Austria. The anti-Semites
have chosen the slogan "We Aus-
trians will decide," sending the mes-
sage "Don't let the Jews' decide for
us." Doesn't the breaking of the
story, with an upfront Jewish source,
play into anti-Semitic hands - and
encourage bigots and longtime Nazi
sympathizers to elect the man whom
they now see as one of their own?,
No; sometimes practicality asks
too much. The Waldheim candidacy
is an outrage to Western values and a
sickening referendum on nostalgia
for Nazism. Jews should feel proud
A man of*
honor would
step aside
of, and not sheepish about their role in
the exposure of his hidden past, and
should resist with passion the bit-by-
Bitburg campaign to persuade a new
generation that everybody in Europe
suffered during the war and. nobody
was to blame.
Because warnings of world reac-
tion to a Waldheim win might be
counterproductive, few outsiders talk
of boycotting the Salzburg Festival or
denying U.S. entry to the first head of
state suspected of passive participa-
tion in atrocities. Let it be said, how-
ever, that Vienna would cease to be
the city of our dreams.
If Kurt Waldheim were a man of
honor, he would recognize the shame
he is bringing to his country and with-
draw; that would be some measure of
expiation for hiding his past to Aus-
trians and the rest of us for 40 years.
But that is too much to expect; if he
had been a man of honor, he would not
have lived the life of a lie. -
Now it is up to the Austrian voters.
They can resist the temptation to bait
the Jews and please the Russiatac,and
stick it to the West. Or the nation that
brought the world Adolf Hitler can,
through the election of one of his se.
cret followers, say to the world that it
is proud of its most infamous son. ^
Approved For Release 2011/03/02 : CIA-RDP90-01208R000100130014-4