A TV Trial for Waldheim

By Richard Zoglin

The gray walls and imitation-marble columns gave the courtroom a properly sober atmosphere. At precisely 2 p.m. last Wednesday, five black-robed judges walked slowly to the podium and brought the proceedings to order. The prosecutor's opening statement set forth an explosive agenda: the alleged complicity of Austrian President Kurt Waldheim in Nazi war crimes during World War II. "I do not represent that his is the hand that holds the smoking pistol," said the attorney. "War crimes were committed by those men whom Waldheim served. But there will be no doubt, I submit, in your minds that Waldheim did more than make coffee for these men. His acts facilitated their crimes."

Thus began what is intended to be the most thorough inquiry so far into Waldheim's wartime record. Yet the "trial" is taking place not in a court but in a TV studio outside London. The defendant will not be present, and the judges' verdict will have no legal standing. The bulk of the proceedings, moreover, are being kept secret until they are shown on television -- edited down to a 3 1/2-hour program that will air June 5 in the U.S. on HBO, as well as in Britain and nearly 30 other countries, but not Austria.

The unusual media event may clear up -- or simply add to -- the controversy surrounding Waldheim's past. But it has already sparked a debate over the propriety of TV's donning judicial robes in an attempt to resolve a matter of & international concern. TV has staged mock trials of historical figures, but never before has it focused on a living person -- one, moreover, who has not been charged with a crime.

Evidence of Waldheim's wartime activities came to light in 1986, when he was running for the Austrian presidency. Newly discovered records showed that during World War II the former U.N. Secretary-General had served on the command staff of a German army group whose units murdered Yugoslav civilians and arranged the deportation of Greek Jews to death camps. Waldheim has admitted to his army service but denies that he knew about or participated in any war crimes. In February a commission of international historians, after studying the evidence, found no proof that Waldheim was guilty of war crimes, but concluded that he had been "excellently informed" about them and did nothing to stop them.

The TV inquiry, launched by Britain's Thames Television in collaboration with HBO, has attempted an even more thorough examination. Twenty-five researchers spent five months combing archives and interrogating witnesses in 19 countries. Their work was arduous and sometimes delicate. One investigator had to listen in silence to a five-hour anti-Jewish tirade from an unrepentant ex-Nazi in order to gain his confidence. Others tracked down a witness in Poland who agreed to meet them only at a gasoline station. Though names are being kept under wraps, 37 witnesses have been flown to London to testify at the nine-day trial. Twelve of them, according to the producers, have never before spoken publicly about the case.

The program's creators stress that it is not a trial but a "commission of inquiry," intended to determine whether there is enough evidence to warrant bringing charges. Presenting the prosecution case is Allan A. Ryan Jr., once the chief Nazi hunter for the U.S. Justice Department; challenging the evidence is Lord Rawlinson, a former British Attorney-General. The international panel of judges -- including Shirley Hufstedler, former U.S. Secretary of Education -- will consider five specific charges against Waldheim. The verdict will not be taped until just prior to the show's telecast.

Not surprisingly, Waldheim has refused to cooperate or recognize the trial's validity. Gerold Christian, his official spokesman, dismisses the TV event as a "mock trial with a preconceived outcome and a known bias." That is disputed by the producers, who insist they searched as hard for evidence to exonerate Waldheim as for evidence to implicate him. Among those likely to testify, for example, is Bruce Ogilvie, a former R.A.F. pilot who claims Waldheim helped him escape Nazi execution. "Everyone knows that Waldheim has been accused," says Producer Jack Saltman, "but our program may be the only fair hearing he ever gets."

Yet even some disinterested observers have qualms about the tribunal. "This kind of thing is a mockery of the judicial process," says Quintin Hogg, Lord Hailsham, former Lord High Chancellor of Britain. "It is substituting trial by media for trial by courts." Simon Wiesenthal, the renowned Nazi hunter, also opposes the mock trial. "As soon as the international historians' commission had published its findings," he says, "the case should have become an affair for the Austrian voters only."

At a press conference last week, Presiding Judge Frederick Lawton defended the TV inquiry as an important forum for resolving questions surrounding Waldheim's past. "Unless properly investigated," he noted, "these allegations could distort the historical record." Former Nuremberg Prosecutor Telford Taylor, a consultant for the program, also supports the trial. "I see no reason to apologize for the fact that it is taking place on television," he says. "It's better to get a reasoned debate with jurists about the accumulated evidence than what we've been getting."

Whether the trial will have any impact on the Waldheim case is unclear. But it is sure to fuel concerns about TV's growing penchant for inserting itself into news events. "This is a formula that needs to be treated with the greatest care," admits Producer Saltman. If the Waldheim show is a hit, however, it is a formula that will almost certainly be repeated.

With reporting by Paul Hofheinz/London and Gertraud Lessing/Vienna