Austria

By William R. Doerner

In the eleven months since he was elected Austria's President, Kurt Waldheim has become known as the "prisoner of the Vienna Hofburg." Not that the former United Nations Secretary-General has been literally confined to the sumptuous gold-and-white quarters that serve as his office. But in the wake of revelations that for decades he concealed much of his record as an officer in the German army during World War II, Waldheim has not formally received even one foreign head of state or paid a single official visit abroad, duties that are the stock-in-trade of his largely ceremonial office. Last week, in the most damaging blow yet, the Reagan Administration barred Waldheim from traveling to the U.S.

While there is no definitive proof that the Austrian President committed war crimes, a Justice Department spokesman said the "evidence collected establishes a prima facie case that Kurt Waldheim assisted or otherwise participated in the persecution of persons because of race, religion, national origin or political opinion." For years Waldheim had left the impression that he had been wounded on the Soviet front in 1941 and spent most of the remaining war years finishing his studies. He later admitted he was a first lieutenant on the staff of German Group E in the Balkans from 1942 to 1945. But he repeatedly denied he was aware of atrocities committed during the brutal German roundup of partisans in the Kozara region of Yugoslavia in the summer of 1942. More than 60,000 people were sent to concentration camps during the campaign, and thousands died in the process. Investigators also believe that Waldheim participated in the deportation of Greek Jews to Nazi death camps in 1944 and helped turn over Allied prisoners to the German SS.

Accusations about these dark chapters in Waldheim's past, based largely on material collected by the World Jewish Congress, began surfacing in 1985. During last year's presidential race in Austria, which Waldheim won with 54% of the vote, the U.S. came under intense pressure from Jewish groups to place Waldheim's name on its "watch list" of some 40,000 suspected war criminals, convicts, deportees and others who are unwelcome in the U.S. To avoid interfering with the Austrian elections, Washington chose to conduct its own meticulous investigation, including the examination by a Justice Department team of previously unavailable records in the Yugoslav war archives. The probe gave careful scrutiny to material submitted on half a dozen occasions by Waldheim in his defense. In the end, the effort served only to turn up more incriminating evidence. Says a Justice Department official: "The more we checked, the worse it got."

In spite of Administration efforts to limit the diplomatic fallout by insisting the U.S. action was "in no way a judgment against the Austrian people," the government of Chancellor Franz Vranitzky reacted with calculated displeasure. Austria pointedly recalled its Ambassador from Washington for consultations and rejected the U.S. charges as "unproven." Nor did officials in Vienna accept the U.S. view that the law excluding Waldheim permits waivers for those with diplomatic status. Said Foreign Minister Alois Mock: "You cannot differentiate between a private person and the President." But Vranitzky stopped short of canceling a scheduled visit to Washington later this month, explaining that he now needs to use his meeting with Reagan to press for the evidence on which the U.S. acted. Austrian political observers took that decision as a sign that Vranitzky, a Socialist, may want to distance himself from Waldheim, who was the presidential nominee of the opposition People's Party.

Waldheim denounced the U.S. decision as "dismaying and incomprehensible" and told Austrians in a nationwide TV address, "I have a clear conscience." Many Austrians rallied to his defense, feeling that he had not been allowed to defend himself in what amounted to an "inquisition," as one Vienna newspaper put it. Some publications called for Waldheim's resignation, less out of shame than as a way of ending the diplomatic isolation that threatens to accompany his presidency. Said the Socialist Party daily Arbeiter-Zeitung: "By resigning, Kurt Waldheim could take this weight off all of Austria." Waldheim is not expected to accede to such pressures. For one thing, he has recently picked up invitations to make three state visits -- to Jordan, Egypt and Hungary -- that will finally allow the prisoner of the Vienna Hofburg a temporary flight of freedom.

With reporting by David Aikman/Washington and John Kohan/Vienna