Waldheim, Kurt 1918-2007 (Kurt Josef Waldheim)

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born December 21, 1918, in St. Andrä-Wördern, Austria; died of heart failure, June 14, 2007, in Vienna, Austria. Diplomat, politician, and author. Waldheim spent most of his career shuttling between high-profile political offices in his native Austria and the highest diplomatic offices at the United Nations, only to fade into the shadows in disgrace. He even won many national and international awards for his diplomatic contributions, especially in the 1970s. It was a surprise to many people, especially after he was refused entrance into the United States as a suspected war criminal in 1987, that Waldheim had served as a Nazi army officer during World War II and may well have been a war criminal responsible for thousands of deaths. The news was no surprise to many others, possibly even to agents of the American Central Intelligence Agency, who reportedly knew of Waldheim's Nazi past for years. It may seem surprising in today's world of aggressive investigative journalism that his past could remain a secret for so long. Many documents, photographs, and even eyewitness testimony link Waldheim to convicted war criminals and acts of atrocity, including military and civil awards for his participation, but justice officials repeatedly insisted that there was no actual proof that Waldheim performed any heinous acts himself. His repeated denials of wrongdoing were enough for him to be elected secretary-general of the United Nations in 1972 and again in 1976, despite the public controversy over his guilt; it did not hurt that his presence was acceptable to both Western and Iron Curtain member nations at the time. This was not enough to carry him to a third term. Waldheim still managed to be elected president of Austria in 1986, but suspicions about his Nazi past, combined with his propensity for changing his story to silence his accusers of the moment, finally caught up with him, and he was not reelected. In the end, Waldheim was never convicted of a crime; in fact, his only trial was in the court of public opinion. Ultimately, in the world's eye, his greatest offense may have been the lies he told to whitewash his past. Many people in all walks of life continue to believe, nonetheless, that he must have known what was happening all around him, and that knowledge itself constituted complicity. At the end of his life, Waldheim's presence was unwelcome almost everywhere in the world except his native Austria, where at least some of his countrymen remembered what it was like to live under Nazi occupation and make choices they would later regret. Waldheim's memoirs include In the Eye of the Storm (1986) and Die Antwort (1996). He also wrote several other books, many of which were published in German.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

BOOKS

Waldheim, Kurt, In the Eye of the Storm, Adler & Adler (Bethesda, MD), 1986.

Waldheim, Kurt, Die Antwort, Amalthea (Vienna, Austria), 1996.

PERIODICALS

Chicago Tribune, June 15, 2007, sec. 3, p. 9.

Los Angeles Times, June 15, 2007, Tracy Wilkinson, p. B8.

New York Times, June 15, 2007, Jonathan Kandell, p. C13.

Washington Post, June 15, 2007, John M. Goshko, p. B7.