President Kurt Waldheim has denied overseas media reports that he was recruited by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), precursor to the CIA, after World War II. A spokesman for Waldheim called the reports “untrue and fabricated.”
According to the reports, the OSS began recruiting German officers who had held key intelligence posts during the war. Waldheim served as an intelligence officer in a German army unit that carried out atrocities in the Balkans, including the deportation of Greek Jews. He dealt with information about the Yugoslavian resistance, British commando activities in the Mediterranean and later Soviet armies in the Balkans.
The OSS was said to have sought German intelligence personnel familiar with Soviet, communist and other leftist activities.
Meanwhile, the Austrian Foreign Ministry announced that it would ask the U.S. State Department, on behalf of Waldheim, for the president’s CIA file, which the Central Intelligence Agency has refused to make public so far.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
