Kurt Waldheim
Kurt Waldheim (born December 21, 1918) is an Austrian diplomat and politician. He was Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1976 to 1981 and Federal President of Austria from 1986 to 1992.
Waldheim and his wife in 2002
Born at St. AndrÃÂä-WÃÂördern near Vienna and educated at the University of Vienna, Waldheim joined the Austrian diplomatic service in 1945, serving as First Secretary of the Legation in Paris from 1948, and in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Vienna from 1951. In 1956 he was made Ambassador to Canada, until going back to the Ministry in 1960, after which he became the Permanent Representative of Austria to the United Nations in 1964. From 1968 he was the Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs in Austria serving for the Austrian People's Party), before going back as Permanent Representative to the UN in 1970. He was defeated in the Austrian presidential elections in 1971, but successfully negotiated the election to become United Nations Secretary-General, in 1972, and re-elected in 1976 despite some opposition. In 1981 his attempt for a third term was blocked by a PRC veto.
Unsuccessfully Waldheim had sought to be elected President of Austria in 1971, but a second attempt in 1986 proved successful despite revelations that he had served as an officer in the SS, an German army unit that had committed war atrocities in Yugoslavia, during World War II. An investigation cleared him from allegations of having been a war criminal, but his term as president was tainted and he would not seek re-election in 1992.
For the length of his term (1986-1992), he was deemed persona non grata by many countries (e.g., he was put on the "US-Watchlist" of people barred from entering the United States) so that during the 6 years he made almost no state visits. A noteable exception was the Vatican, which he visited twice during his term.
No allegations of involvment in war crimes were publicly known prior to and during his terms as United Nations Secretary-General. Media reports in 1983 revealed that the Soviet Union implicated him through captured German archives at the beginning of his first term. They used this information to blackmail him. His second term as Secretary General was heavily anti-American as per the Soviet Union's prodding.
His memoirs, mainly about his time as head of the UN Secretariat, was published in 1985 under the title In the Eye of the Storm.
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Preceded by: U Thant |
United Nations Secretaries-General |
Succeeded by: Javier PÃÂérez de CuÃÂéllar |
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Preceded by: Rudolf KirchschlÃÂäger |
Presidents of Austria |
Succeeded by: Thomas Klestil |