Hearing OKd on Whether to Bar Waldheim

The Justice Department will grant attorneys for former U.N. Secretary General Kurt Waldheim a hearing before ruling on a recommendation to bar the Austrian presidential candidate from the United States because of alleged participation in Nazi war crimes, officials said Monday.

Patrick Korten, a spokesman for Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III, who will rule on the barring, said the matter still could be decided before the Austrian election on Sunday.

But Korten, who said the hearing will be closed, stressed that the decision will be made “completely without regard” for the timing of the race.

‘Watch List’ at Issue

Specifically, Meese will decide whether to place Waldheim on the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s “watch list,” which would classify him as an alien to be stopped from entering the United States, as recommended by the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations.

Korten said the department has received a request from Waldheim’s attorneys in Washington, whom he declined to identify, “to be given an opportunity to be heard. We decided to give them that opportunity.”

Regardless of its timing, Meese’s decision could leave the Reagan Administration in an embarrassing political dilemma. If Waldheim is elected, the United States might be faced with the unprecedented position of barring a head of state from a friendly European country.

However, if the Administration chooses not to bar him, it runs the risk of offending many Jewish Americans and others, particularly in light of the many allegations against Waldheim that have mounted steadily in recent months.

Latest Charges

On Friday, for example, long-secret U.N. files showed that the U.N. War Crimes Commission determined in 1948 that Waldheim should be tried as a Nazi war criminal for “murder” and for “putting hostages to death.”

In Vienna, Waldheim said those accusations are “absurd and deplorable.” He said the report, which claims that he was “responsible for the retaliation actions carried out by the Wehrmacht (Nazi army) units in Yugoslavia” at the end of World War II, was based on discredited documents.

Korten said Waldheim’s case has not yet been presented to Meese.

“So far as we’re concerned, the investigation is still continuing,” he said.