Waldheim, Schwarzenegger pal, diplomat with Nazi past, dies

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http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070615/REPOSITORY/706150357/1013/NEWS03

Waldheim, diplomat with Nazi past, dies
Ex-U.N. chief became pariah when exposed
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By Tracy Wilkinson
Los Angeles Times


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June 15. 2007 9:30AM


Kurt Waldheim, the erudite diplomat who served as U.N. secretary-general and Austria's president but left the world stage a pariah after his Nazi past was exposed, died yesterday. He was 88.

Austrian state media said Waldheim, who was hospitalized last month with an infection, died of heart failure in Vienna, Austria.

The case that defined the legacy and memory of the longtime diplomat was built around a grainy black-and-white photograph that showed a young Waldheim - tall, lean and uniformed - as he fought for a Nazi army unit blamed for wartime atrocities in the Balkans. snip

But for most of the world, Waldheim was ruined and discredited. He, and by extension, Austria, were ostracized and isolated.

Fellow Austrian Arnold Schwarzenegger invited Waldheim to his 1986 wedding to Maria Shriver, a month after the disclosures about Waldheim's Nazi past. Waldheim did not attend but sent a gift, prompting Schwarzenegger to give what participants described as a very emotional toast in Waldheim's honor. (Later, when he was running for governor of California, Schwarzenegger's aides said he realized that the invitation and the toast had been a "stupid" mistake, one that - had he known then what he knew later - he would not have committed.)

Pope John Paul II welcomed Waldheim to the Vatican in his first official trip abroad after his election as president, a recognition that provoked anger across the Jewish world and in Washington, D.C.

[seemslikeadream]

1. Mr. Totenkopf Schwarzenegger

[Alexia Wheaton]

3. Once a nazi, always one.

[The Count]

2. June 15. And it will be conveniently burried if GOP ever decides....

Just as it was at recall time. There was an even more damning story - a speech ahnuld made - very lyrical nostalgic about Hitler's orator talent he wanted to have as well.