The World - News from Nov. 19, 1987

Two Austrian politicians widely criticized for anti-Semitic statements quit their jobs amid a storm of protest over remarks one made about President Kurt Waldheim’s past. Michael Graff, general secretary of the conservative Austrian People’s Party, had told the French publication L’Express: “So long as it’s not proved that he strangled six Jews with his own hands,” there was no problem with Waldheim’s alleged Nazi connections in World War II. Hours after Graff resigned, the deputy mayor of Linz, Carl Hoedl, said he was quitting. Hoedl had been criticized for a letter to the World Jewish Congress that compared its “crusade” against Waldheim to the “trial against Jesus Christ.”