VIENNA, Austria -- Former U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, who was
elected Austrian president despite an international
scandal about his secretive World War II military service for the Nazis, died
Thursday, Austrian media reported. He was 88.
Waldheim, who was hospitalized in Vienna late last month with a fever-causing
infection, died of heart failure with family members
at his bedside, state broadcaster ORF reported.
Waldheim's tenure as U.N. chief from 1972-82 and his election as president in
1986 were overshadowed by revelations that he belonged
to a German army unit that committed atrocities in the Balkans during World War
II.
While Waldheim himself was not implicated in wrongdoing, his initial denial of
such service -- and then assertions that he and fellow
Austrians were only doing their duty -- led to international censure and a
decision by Washington to place him on a "watch list" of
persons prohibited from visiting the U.S.
That ban was never lifted.
President Heinz Fischer issued a statement expressing his "deepest
condolences," and officials lowered the flag flying outside his
office to half-staff.
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