Waldheim Changes Story on Duties but Denies Guilt

Austrian President Kurt Waldheim has changed his story about not being in Kozara, Yugoslavia, during a 1942 Nazi massacre, but this “does not in any way” make him a war criminal, a spokesman said Thursday.

Responding to a story in the Washington Post on the former U.N. secretary general’s reversal of a previous denial that he was in Kozara, Waldheim’s spokesman, Gerold Christian, called charges against Waldheim ridiculous.

The Post quoted Christian on Thursday as saying that Waldheim, after “additional research,” had determined that he served as a supply officer in the World War II Nazi operation in the mountains of Kozara during the spring and summer of 1942.

Waldheim, however, was not a combatant in the brutal “pacification” campaign that resulted in the death of thousands of Yugoslav partisans and the deportation of thousands of civilians to Nazi concentration camps, Christian said.

“Mr. Waldheim never admitted he was a war criminal,” Christian said. “The facts speak against these charges. We are witnessing a continuation of the defamation campaign against Mr. Waldheim.”

Erroneous Denial

In Washington, the attorney hired to represent the Austrian president before the Department of Justice, said that Waldheim acknowledges he was in Kozara and that an earlier 13-page memo given the department erroneously denied he was in the area.

Attorney Tom Carraccio said two more recent submissions to Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III, who is deciding whether Waldheim should be placed on a U.S. list of excludable aliens, show the recently elected Austrian president was a low-level officer in charge of distributing supplies.

Meese said Thursday that the department still is investigating the charges against Waldheim. “This will be additional information that we will consider in making the decision” on whether to bar him from the United States.

Meanwhile, the World Jewish Congress charged Thursday that Waldheim, as Austria’s foreign minister in 1968 at the time the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia, ordered his country’s embassy in Prague to turn away Czech citizens seeking asylum.

The New York-based Jewish Congress, which has been investigating Waldheim’s activities since the beginning of the year, released copies of a diplomatic cable it said bore Waldheim’s initials directing the embassy to close its doors to Czechs seeking refuge.

The ambassador in Prague, according to the Jewish group, ignored the directive and ended up issuing more than 5,000 visas a day to enable Czechs to get out of the country.

B’nai B’rith’s international president, Seymour Reich, said Waldheim’s about-face “should now put to rest any question” about placing him on a U.S. “watch list.”

The Post also reported that Yugoslav and Soviet intelligence officials threatened to charge Waldheim--who was U.N. secretary general from 1972-1982--with war crimes in the winter of 1947-1948 unless he agreed to become a Communist agent.

No Independent Proof

While a former senior Yugoslav intelligence official, who requested anonymity, told the newspaper the Soviets claimed they successfully recruited Waldheim, the Post said it could not independently verify the claim.

Christian said, “Mr. Waldheim denies that Yugoslav and Soviet intelligence ever made such an attempt.”

He also said the fact that Waldheim was a supply officer in 1942 “does not in any way make Mr. Waldheim a criminal.”