Waldheim and His Buddies

Kurt Waldheim has been banned from the United States and most other countries since 1987, the year after he was elected Austria’s president. There’s never been any mystery about the reason. The former two-term secretary-general of the United Nations lied about his World War II service in the German army, claiming he received a medical discharge in 1942 when in fact he served as an officer until 1945. According to a Justice Department investigation, he spent those years assisting in the mass deportation to Nazi death camps of Jews and others in Greece and Yugoslavia, and the transfer of Allied war prisoners to the Nazi SS, which executed many of them.

In a newly published autobiography Waldheim concedes he erred in lying about his past but continues to insist his wartime behavior was above reproach. In interviews he suggests his international ostracism results from a smear campaign run by--what else?--an “all-powerful” American Jewish lobby. Last week Waldheim went to the Austrian Parliament and was filmed presenting a copy of his book to Joerg Haidar, leader of the extreme-right Freedom Party, who has held a rally with Nazi SS veterans. Waldheim may have enemies everywhere, but he still knows where to find his friends.