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Waldheim A Dilemma
For Austrians, Jews
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LOTHAR KAHN
Special. to The Jewish News
E
yen before the report
of the international
commission that is to
investigate Austrian Presi-
dent Kurt Waldheim's ac-
tivities is published, it is clear
that no solution of the
Waldheim dilemma is going
to be good for Austrians, and
especially not for Austria's
Jews.
It is unlikely that the com-
mission is going to come up
with specific evidence of any
personally committed war
crimes. Such diverse per-
sonalities as Simon Wiesen-
thal and Michael Lingens
have expressed doubt that
such evidence can be produc-
ed or even that it exists. Yet
both are equally convinced
that the clouds over
Waldheim cannot go away.
Unprepared for the charges
against him and long ac-
customed to being able to
hide his less than admirable
past, Waldheim spun a series
of lies in which before long he
found himself wholly
entrapped.
Wiesenthal has openly ac-
cused Waldheim of being a
liar, even as he doubts any
specific criminal guilt.
Lingens, the former manag-
ing editor of Austria's most
prestigious news magazine —
which first broke the
Waldheim story — holds a
position close to Wiesenthal's
What are the options, as
matters now stand or if the
commission report is less
than conclusive?
If Waldheim should step
down, it will not be due to any
widespread disapproval of his
past among the Austrian
masses. They will continue to
blame Jewish pressure or the
power of international Jewry
which is determined to ruin a
man they had selected as the
Austrian head of state. 'Ib
some degree, Waldheim's posi-
tion has become untenable.
Foreign governments have
refused to invite him and
again Austrians see the in-
visible Jewish hand behind
the snubs.
In a recent interview,
Lingens said he would like to
see a Waldheim resignation
coming as the result of inter-
nal Austrian pressure — aris-
ing out of moral values — but
not as the result of actions
from without. Lingens looks
upon the likelihood of this in-
ternal pressure developing as
minimal. In his interview
with the International Herald
Kurt Waldheim:
No specific evidence.
Tribune, Lingens states that
the Austrians, by and large,
are willing to, forgive a politi-
cian's lies and coverup of his
past having long been ac-
customed to such maneuvers.
They refuse to be stirred by
Waldheim's shallow "I only
did my duty;' or by the succes-
sion of revised statements
that issued from Waldheim's
office. Rather than becoming
aroused over Waldheim's
liberties with the truth, they
become incensed over those
who try to point it out to
them.
If he resigns, world Jewry
will have forced "an innocent
Austrian President to resign!'
If he remains in office, world
Jewry will continue to ex-
press its disdain for him and
the clear majority that
wanted him to be their head
of state.
In either case, the editor-
journalist believes, the Jews
still living in Austria will be
made to feel uncomfortable if
not worse. Lingens did not ex-
pressly say this, but some of
these Jews may opt for renew-
ed emigration.
Neither major Austrian
party has behaved admirably
in the Waldheim case. The
desire to win the election for
president, a largely
ceremonial office, had made
the leadership of the conser-
vative People's Party blind to
the implications of
Waldheim's past.
The Socialists have, in re-
cent months, increasingly at-
tacked the Waldheim past,
though with caution. In 1975
they had proposed as presi-
dent of parliament a member
of the SS death brigade in
Russia that had surely killed
Jews by the thousands. He,
too, had used the reason
which Waldheim employed:
He had merely done his duty.
Neither side has been above
making political capital.