In 1972, the respected Austrian statesman Kurt Waldheim succeed U Thant as secretary general of the United nations, a post he held for two terms, until 1981. He tried to stand for a third term, but his attempt was vetoed by China.
In 1985, Waldheim began campaigning for the Austrian presidency, and also published his memoir In the Eye of the Storm. The memoir concentrated on his UN role, and prompted several journalists to begin asking questions about Waldheim’s role in WWII, particularly his role as a counter-insurgency officer in the Balkans, at a time when ferocious reprisals were being carried out against Yugoslav civilians, prisoners were being tortured and executed, and trains and trucks bore victims to death camps. When challenged about his role in all this, Waldheim took the line that he was a simple soldier carrying out clerical duties, and knew nothing of any of the horrors taking place – which, as has been said, made Waldheim the worst-informed military intelligence officer in history.
The presidential campaign in Austria thus attracted a lot of international attention, and observers noted how Waldheim was being rapturously cheered by veterans of Hitler’s war wherever he went. John Simpson of the BBC went to one such emotionally charged election meeting, described in his enthralling autobiography, A Mad World, My Masters (2000). Simpson asked Waldheim if he was going to win. Waldheim replied, yes, the people loved him, as Simpson could see. Simpson then asked a rather direct question: ‘Even though in today’s British press there are accusations that you ordered the execution of several British prisoners of war?”
Waldheim seems to have punched Simpson in the stomach even before he finished asking the question. Simpson had been punched in the stomach before, in 1970, by the then British prime minister Harold Wilson, and says Wilson’s punch was harder (it floored him, in fact). The assault on Simpson was filmed by an American camera team and caused a sensation in Austria. Waldheim was elected president in 1986.
What Happened Next
Also in 1986, Waldheim gave one of the oddest wedding gifts in history when Arnold Schwarzenegger, who held dual Austrian and American citizenship, married Maria Shriver, Waldheim was invited to the wedding, but wisely did not attend, and sent instead a life-size papier-mâché statue of Schwarzenegger, clad in lederhosen, carrying off Shriver, clad in a dirndl. Someone lucky enough to see this strange object described it as ‘sinister’. Andy Warhol’s diary records Schwarzenegger’s delighted reaction to the gift. Waldheim served as Austrian president until 1992, and in 1994 the US Justice Department concluded that Waldheim had indeed been guilty of war crimes, and barred him from the US. A few months later, Pope John Paul II gave Waldheim a papal knighthood.