Waldheim, Despite Hostage Trip, Gets No Respect on Global Stage

Austrian President Kurt Waldheim fumes at his inability to get the world to change the subject. In the palace of the Hapsburgs, where his office is situated amid jeweled artworks, priceless paintings and ornate baroque woodwork, Waldheim is like a prisoner in a gilded cage.

Political observers say that since his controversial journey to Baghdad, Iraq, last month to bring out Austrian hostages, Waldheim has become increasingly frustrated by his isolation from the world community that he once served as secretary general of the United Nations.

“If any other head of state had done what I did,” he complained in an interview this week, “I think he would have been praised for getting his people back home.”

Waldheim was indeed greeted as a hero in Austria for rescuing the 96 hostages. He described the trip as a “humanitarian mission” and said he asked Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to release other Western hostages as well.

“I don’t want to exaggerate,” he said, “but I dare say that my visit facilitated the departure of those other hostages who followed.”

Outside Austria, the former U.N. official has been widely condemned for breaking ranks with the allies and providing Hussein a stage on which to pose as a responsible world leader.

Instead of winning Waldheim the reinstatement in the international community he desperately wants, the Baghdad trip sank him even deeper in international regard. Even worse, in Waldheim’s mind, it reawakened persistent, unanswered questions about his World War II military service.

The charges that Waldheim lied about his role as a German army intelligence officer in the Balkans, at a time when thousands of Greek Jews and Yugoslavs were being killed in Nazi death camps, haunts Waldheim’s every move. He is the head of state no one wants to see.

A recent handshake with the president of Cyprus was a major triumph. Attending an international summit conference is the stuff of dreams. Banned from visiting the United States, Waldheim cannot go back to the campus of Georgetown University, where he once taught.

Indeed, Waldheim’s trip to Iraq, the London-based Independent newspaper recently editorialized, “was a sad attempt to find someone pleased to see him.”

There has been an unofficial boycott of the Austrian president since his controversial election four years ago. Visits from foreign leaders have to be scheduled for the most part when Waldheim is out of town. Otherwise they will not come.

The first important world leaders to meet Waldheim in Austria since the election were Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel and West German President Richard von Weizsaecker at the Salzburg Festival this summer. Havel used the occasion to lecture Waldheim about the immorality of lying and covering up past crimes.

It is widely believed that Vienna lost its bid for the all-Europe summit conference scheduled for November because of the protocol difficulties that would have been involved. Although the important arms negotiations leading up to the summit have taken place in Vienna, the summit itself will be in Paris.

Waldheim’s official travel records show that he is welcome only in Arab and Muslim states where he is considered to be the victim of a “Zionist conspiracy.”

Waldheim insists he is not a war criminal. He refers questioners to reports of international commissions that found no evidence of his involvement in war crimes. The reports, including one commissioned by Waldheim himself in 1988, did accuse him of covering up his past, notably a three-year gap in 1942-45 when Waldheim said he was a law student in Vienna but was actually on duty in the Balkans as an officer with the German army.

He also quotes Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, who has described Waldheim as an opportunist who joined Nazi-affiliated clubs and organizations but did nothing that would make him a war criminal.

“If you really accepted the argument against me,” Waldheim said, “then you would have to accuse a whole generation of having served in the German army. We didn’t volunteer. We were drafted.”

Meanwhile, he blames international conspiracies for his woes.

“Certain quarters,” he said, referring to the World Jewish Congress and other Jewish groups, blame him for the U.N. resolution equating Zionism and racism that was adopted during his time at the United Nations.

And “certain parties,” he added, referring to France and other European countries, attack him because they oppose Austria’s application for membership in the European Community and want to portray Austria as an unreliable country.

The reception room outside Waldheim’s office in the Hofburg Palace was once the bedroom of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria-Hungary.

Among the priceless relics in the room is a peculiar jeweled clock. The Roman numerals that mark the hours are in reverse order, and to a visitor the clock makes no sense. But the empress had it designed that way, so she could see the time by looking in a mirror at the foot of her bed.

Somehow, the strange clock is perfect preparation for a visit with Kurt Waldheim. In his mirror of the world, he is an innocent public servant maliciously dragged through the mud.

Among the reasons he gives for his rejection by the international community, he does not list the possibility that some people harbor real doubts about his war record, that they see him as unfit for public service even if he did not take part directly in war crimes.

In his view, the French oppose him because they fear that if Austria joins the European Community, German-speaking countries--Germany and Austria--will have too much power.

According to Waldheim, Austria’s application aroused latent French fears of another period of Austrian-German unity like that brought on by Adolf Hitler’s Anschluss of 1938. The French attacked him for his trip to Iraq, Waldheim said, because it shows that Austria would not be a trustworthy member of the new united Europe.

“Austria is in a delicate situation,” he said. “There is a fear that Austria joining the European Community would increase the German elements.”

In Waldheim’s mirror, this is the hidden reason the French have turned against him, just as the Zionist-racism resolution is the real reason for the Jewish community harboring a grudge against him.

Nevertheless, Waldheim said, he will not resign as president of Austria.

“Why should I?” he said, “I haven’t done anything wrong. I have a clean conscience.”

His tenacity in clinging to his job surprises even his most loyal aides, one of whom said, “I told him I would consider suicide if I were under the same pressure.”

His press attache, Heinz Nussbaumer, said, “I think he sees remaining in power as his only chance to bring justice in the case.”

At the close of the interview, the 72-year-old Austrian president hinted that he might even run for reelection when his term ends in 1992.