Austria Trapped in the Eye of the Storm

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To plead Waldheim's case, Vienna last week dispatched Fritz Molden, a filmmaker and World War II resistance hero, on a tour of the U.S. and Britain. Molden, who helped hire Waldheim for the Austrian Foreign Ministry after the war but insists that he is not a close friend, said he undertook the mission for Austria's sake. Accompanied by Ralph Scheide, a Waldheim aide and co- author of the white paper, Molden called the Austrian President the victim of a smear campaign. "If you pour two gallons of manure over somebody, he will smell," Molden said, "and then you can say that he stinks." Scheide argued that the case against Waldheim has dwindled to charges that he knew of Nazi atrocities. "Of course he knew," Scheide conceded. "So did everyone else." Such arguments did not impress the Justice Department, which last year barred Waldheim from entering the U.S. under a law aimed at undesirable aliens.

In debating the Waldheim furor, some Austrians have displayed an insensitivity toward the President's Jewish critics that has sometimes curdled into outright anti-Semitism. Michael Graff, secretary-general of the People's Party, was forced to resign last month after he told the French magazine L'Express that Waldheim had "no problem" unless he could be proved to have "strangled six Jews single-handedly." On the other hand, in Vienna last week, three neo-Nazis interrupted a nationally televised ceremony honoring Nazi Hunter Simon Wiesenthal with repeated shouts of "Murderer!" When the program's host asked the audience to show its disapproval by giving Wiesenthal a standing ovation, the listeners responded with fervent applause.

The President's fate may now rest with a seven-member commission that has been poring over Waldheim's war record since September. Chaired by Hans Rudolf Kurz, a Swiss military historian, the panel has met for a week each month to sift 30 pounds of documents in the red silk-lined chambers of the Austrian State Archives. Scheduled to release its report on Feb. 2, the commission seems certain to go beyond the narrow question of whether Waldheim committed war crimes and to explore such issues as how much Waldheim knew and whether he acted to save lives.

Waldheim has vowed not to be bound by the panel's findings. He is busily making plans for the spring, and will greet Pope John Paul II in June when he visits Austria, which is 85% Roman Catholic. When the Pontiff met Waldheim at the Vatican last summer, the audience drew protests from the international Jewish community. This time the Vatican pointed out that John Paul's upcoming encounters with Waldheim are standard protocol for papal trips abroad.