Ban on Waldheim Entry to U.S. Recommended : Political Dilemma Seen in Proposal to Put Former U.N. Chief on ‘Watch List’ as Alien

The Justice Department unit that investigates Nazi war criminals has urged that former U.N. Secretary General Kurt Waldheim be banned from entering this country because of his alleged participation in Nazi-sponsored persecutions, government sources said Thursday.

The recommendation is made in a memorandum from Neal Sher, head of the department’s Office of Special Investigations, to Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III, urging that Waldheim be placed on the government’s “watch list” as an alien who is to be stopped from crossing U.S. borders, the sources said.

Since Waldheim is a leading candidate in the May 4 Austrian presidential election, Sher’s recommendation presents the Reagan Administration with a potentially delicate political dilemma. If it is accepted and Waldheim is elected, the United States would be in the unprecedented position of barring the head of state of a friendly European nation from entering this country.

Risks of Rejection

On the other hand, rejecting the war crimes unit’s recommendation--which seemingly amounts to the first official finding by U.S. experts that recent allegations about Waldheim’s past have merit--would risk offending many American Jews and others who are extremely sensitive to issues involving Nazi Germany.

President Reagan first confronted the depth of this feeling last year when he received heavy criticism for his decision to visit a German military cemetery at Bitburg, where 49 Nazi SS (elite force) combat troops were buried along with 2,000 other soldiers. At the forefront of the effort to investigate and make public Waldheim’s war record has been the World Jewish Congress, headquartered in New York City.

‘Watch List’ of Suspects

Under federal law, any alien who was associated with the Nazi government in Germany during World War II or with a government controlled or allied with the Nazis during the war can be restricted from entering this country. To enforce that law, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service maintains a so-called “watch list” of suspects.

Sher’s recommendation was based on a review by the special investigations office of a secret U.N. War Crimes Commission file on Waldheim that was recently turned over to officials of the U.S., Austrian and Israeli governments.

According to the sources, the memorandum urging the action is to be reviewed by Justice Department officials and then forwarded to Meese for a final decision. The attorney general has been in Europe this week for meetings with international law enforcement officials on terrorism and is due back today. The memorandum also will be examined by the State Department, sources said.

Patrick S. Korten, a Justice Department spokesman, said he could neither confirm nor deny the contents of the memorandum. Sher was not available for comment.

Korten did say, however, that “no conclusions have been drawn nor any review of the matter taken” by Sher’s decision-making superiors at the Justice Department.

40,000 Sealed Files

The file was made available to the United States at the formal request of the special investigations office. The documents on Waldheim were included among about 40,000 sealed files on war criminals, suspects and witnesses compiled by the U.N. War Crimes Commission during operations in London after World War II.

The file has been reported as showing that the commission concluded in 1948 that there was sufficient evidence to prosecute Waldheim for the murder of Yugoslav partisans from April, 1944, to May, 1945. Waldheim has denied any knowledge of atrocities against Yugoslav partisans but has acknowledged that he served in the German army in the Balkans during the war.

On Tuesday, the current president of Austria, Rudolf Kirchschlager, said in a broadcast address that his examination of the documents about Waldheim’s activities during the war showed that he must have been aware of German reprisals against partisans in the Balkans. But Kirchschlager said there was insufficient evidence that Waldheim participated in war crimes or was aware of the deportation of Jews from Greece to Nazi death camps.

The Austrian president said that the documents show that in 1948 the Yugoslav War Crimes Commission accused Waldheim before the U.N. commission of involvement in war-time reprisals against Yugoslavs. But Yugoslavia did not pursue prosecution, he said.