U.S. Defends Withholding of Its Files From Waldheim Panel

The Justice Department withheld its own investigative files from an Austrian panel that examined President Kurt Waldheim’s wartime activities out of concern that Waldheim may eventually file suit against U.S. authorities, Justice Department officials said Friday.

Such a lawsuit, the officials said, might be mounted by Waldheim to challenge the department’s decision last April to place him on a “watch list” of foreigners excluded from entry to this country.

“Why should we let him have an advance look at our evidence?” asked one official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A panel of historians commissioned by the Austrian government concluded earlier this week that Waldheim, a former U.N. secretary general, must have known about the mass deportation of Jews to Nazi death camps while he was serving as an officer in the German army but did nothing to oppose or distance himself from it. It did not impute direct responsibility for war crimes, however.

The failure of the Justice Department to cooperate in the examination--conducted as Austria’s leaders weigh whether to force Waldheim out of office--has been roundly criticized by Austrian officials.

Justice Department officials asserted that their decision did not impair the panel’s study.

“Their finding doesn’t really differ much from ours,” said Justice Department spokesman Patrick Korten. “We have never addressed the issue of war crimes directly. Mr. Waldheim was deemed excludable under our immigration laws because his (wartime) actions were in some way connected with the persecution of individuals based on religion, race or national origin.”

Waldheim has been the object of international controversy for nearly two years. The controversy followed an announcement by the World Jewish Congress that it found evidence that Waldheim had concealed the extent of his wartime service between 1942 and 1945 with army units that were involved in atrocities against Jews and Yugoslav partisans in the Balkans.

Korten said the refusal to furnish the files was “a matter of principle because if you open up your confidential files in one case, you set a precedent for other cases.”

He said department lawyers determined that the Austrian commission, without help from U.S. officials, could get “equal access” to much of the same evidence obtained earlier by the department.

In a December, 1987, letter made public by the department, Neal M. Sher, director of the Office of Special Investigations, which looks into alleged Nazi war crimes, told the Austrian panel that the department’s case file on Waldheim is “an internal, pre-decisional document.”

In the same letter, Sher said that the accumulated evidence implicated Waldheim “in acts which clearly constitute persecution under established legal precedent.”

Justice Department officials said the evidence will be detailed publicly if Waldheim files an appeal of his immigration status.