Cia Document Indicates Agency Knew About Waldheim’s Wartime Record

A document that has been in the files of the Central Intelligence Agency since its inception in 1947 indicates that the agency knew Kurt Waldheim was a German army intelligence officer during World War II.

The document, dated April 26, 1945, was known to exist even as the United States was voting to confirm Waldheim as secretary-general of the United Nations in 1971.

The document, said to be an Office of Strategic Services record of interrogation of a German prisoner, was obtained by the World Jewish Congress from government sources in a European country, said WJC’s Executive Director, Elan Steinberg.

The prisoner supposedly gave descriptions of German intelligence officers, including Waldheim.

The CIA has denied having any information that could have prevented Waldheim from being elected U.N. secretary-general, the WJC said.

The WJC said the CIA had refused repeated requests under the Freedom of Information Act to provide any documents it had on Waldheim.

“In response to repeated requests under the Freedom of Information,” said Mark Mansfield, spokesman for the CIA, “the CIA has acknowledged the existence of a document in OSS files dated April 26, 1945, containing information on Waldheim.

“This document cannot be released under FIOA because it was acquired from a foreign government under guaranties of confidentiality. It is simply not correct to draw the conclusion that a FIOA denial on these grounds is a CIA “cover-up.”

A government source who would not be identified confirmed that “the document is authentic.”

In June 1987, the CIA informed the WJC in writing that a search of its records had produced “one document,” which was an Office of Strategic Services report dated April 2, 1945.

RECEIVED FROM FOREIGN GOVERNMENT

It would not release the document, but said its information came from “a foreign government,” the WJC said.

“It is now clear that besides the U.S., one or more other countries were aware of Waldheim’s concealed past,” Steinberg said.

The document provided by the WJC also contradicts information provided by the CIA to Rep. Stephen Solarz (D-N.Y.), who was conducting his own investigation into why the United States did not try to block the Waldheim nomination.

Solarz requested information about Waldheim in 1980, reportedly after reading an article in The New Republic that stated that Waldheim had been a member of the Nazi student union.

Solarz asked the CIA to comment on any Nazi affiliations Waldheim might have had. The CIA denied it had detailed intelligence on Waldheim’s military service, only that Waldheim had been “discharged from military duties” in 1941 and “returned to study law in Vienna.”

A spokesman for Solarz said the congressman had not yet reviewed the document and could not therefore comment.

But, he said, “it certainly raises very large questions of what happened at the CIA,” questions “which Congressman Solarz intends to pursue very vigorously.”

During Waldheim’s long diplomatic career, and in his published memoirs, “In the Eye of the Storm,” he claimed he was in the German cavalry, was wounded in the leg in 1941 at the Russian front and returned to Vienna to pursue law studies. He also said he had no affiliations to Nazi organizations.

Major discrepancies in Waldheim’s account of his wartime experiences came to light beginning in March 1986, when he was nominated to the presidency of Austria.

Documents from the Austrian War Archives show that Waldheim was a member of the Nazi “Brownshirts” and the National Socialist Student Organization.

Subsequent papers that were found showed Waldheim was attached to a German army unit in the Balkans that conducted fierce reprisals against Yugoslav partisans.