I wrote most of the following pages before the great international hue and cry about Kurt Waldheim's war record, and I have not changed them. Throughout his ten years at the United Nations, Waldheim's answer to questions about his wartime service was as stated in his two autobiographical books, namely, that he was wounded on the Russian front in late 1941, convalesced, and left the German Army to resume his law studies early in 1942. When from time to time there were unsubstantiated stories or allegations about his past, Waldheim invariably and strongly reaffirmed this story, even claiming that he and his family were anti-Nazi. For lack of evidence to the contrary, we all accepted this version and, on the basis of it, reacted strongly to those who, for one purpose or another, questioned it or made allegations about Waldheim's wartime activities.
Waldheim, it has now become clear, lied for nearly 40 years about his war record, presumably believing that the truth would stand in the way of his relentless pursuit of public position and office. This seems to me a far greater disqualification for responsible office, either national or international, than the currently available evidence of his doings as an officer in Hitler's army. Waldheim, emerging as a living lie, has done immense damage not only to his own country but to the United Nations and to those who have devoted, and in some cases sacrificed, their lives for it. (I write on the morning of the announcement that our kidnapped colleague, Alec Collett, whom I and many others had made unavailing efforts to rescue, has been hanged by extremists in Beirut in reprisal for the American raid on Libya.)
The Waldheim episode is above all an indictment of the way in which governments, and especially the great powers, select the world's leading international civil servant. Although good men have been elected, looking for the person with the qualities best suited to this infinitely demanding and important job seems to hold a very low priority for governments. Rather, political differences dictate a search for a candidate who will not exert any troubling degree of leadership, commitment, originality, or independence. Waldheim was an energetic, ambitious mediocrity. In fact he did rather better as Secretary-General than I had anticipated and demonstrated determination and even, on occasion, courage, but he lacked the qualities of vision, integrity, inspiration, and leadership that the United Nations so desperately needs.
On top of this lackluster selection the permanent members of the Security Council, four of which were members of the Allied War Crimes Commission, apparently never checked either the Commission's files or their own records to discover if there was anything unsuitable or questionable in this past German Army officer.
When I decided in 1945 that I was going to devote my life to the United Nations, I soon realized that this would mean accepting a number of things that I hadn't bargained for. One of these was the unforeseeable quality of future Secretaries-General. Since we in the Secretariat were stuck with whomever the great powers could agree on and had no say whatsoever in the matter, we either had to give up our vocation or make the best of whomever came along. I chose the latter course and have never regretted it. It is mortifying, however, to discover, years later, that I spent a decade working intensively with, and publicly defending, a man who had deliberately told lies about his past.
To counteract the intermittent irritations and absurdities of working with Waldheim, we had a number of running fantasies about him. We used to speculate on just how far Waldheim would go to get publicity. We saw him as two people: Waldheim Mark 1, a scheming, ambitious, duplicitous egomaniac ready to do anything for advantage or public acclaim; and Waldheim Mark II, the statesmanlike leader who kept his head while all about him were losing theirs and was prepared to follow our advice in great international crises. These and other fantasies seem rather less funny now.
In 1970 I knew Kurt Waldheim scarcely at all, but much of what I had heard made me uneasy. I was, in any case, suffering from considerable weariness and disillusion, and the thought of an ambitious, unknown, and untried new boss filled me with gloom.
Waldheim had been the Austrian Ambassador at the UN and then Foreign Minister of Austria. He had recently run creditably but unsuccessfully for the presidency of Austria and had switched his single-minded ambition like a laser beam from Austrian national politics to the United Nations. I could not help questioning whether he was the right man to remedy the staleness of the Secretariat or to heal the political wounds which the UN had sustained in the previous four years.
My first impressions of, and experiences with, Waldheim tended to bear out this view, but when I got to know him and to work with him closely, I found he had qualities which did not readily present themselves to casual acquaintances or to the public. He was conscientious, hardworking, and had great physical stamina. He was ready to accept ideas and suggestions and follow them up, and he was never too tired or too indifferent to undertake an awkward journey or to make a difficult phone call.
Working with Waldheim could be a grind because he insisted on going over and over the smallest details, often going right back to the beginning and starting all over again, so that meetings and conversations frequently dragged on for hours and late into the night. This was partly due to his innate dislike for coming down firmly on one side or the other, but it was also prudence in a very difficult job in which it was important not to undermine the usefulness of his office as an intermediary. I t could, however, drive you crazy. I remember one evening early on, exasperated by hours of dithering over the phrasing of a statement on Vietnam, saying, "We really must make a decision." "There will be no decision," snapped Waldheim. "That is a decision."
Waldheim worried a great deal about his public image, but his efforts to tackle this problem usually made things worse. He was too anxious to be given credit and tended to be too accessible to the media. He frequently had to resort to clichÄs and to bland, noncommittal statements which bored the press. His manner sometimes seemed ingratiating, and he tried too hard with too little to say. Indeed, the discretion imposed upon the Secretary-General by his position as honest broker between governments greatly limits his capacity to interest the media. All in all, Waldheim had an unfortunate public personality.
Waldheim tended to make off-the-cuff statements and later to try to retract or alter them. He spent hours editing the transcripts of press conferences he had already given. He occasionally lost his temper with journalists, with disastrous results. He was acutely sensitive to negative press reports, of which the United Nations routinely suffers a great many, and his efforts to deal with them usually made matters worse.
At the outset, Waldheim seemed to resent Hammarskjold's almost legendary reputation. He also saw himself as the rescuer of the organization from the fallout of the 1967 Middle East debacle and the debility of U Thant's later years. He apparently believed he would have successfully avoided the 1967 disaster.
Waldheim succeeded in an effective reallotment of the top political positions, but elsewhere mediocrity and politically expedient appointments predominated. With his critical views about his predecessors, Waldheim was unlikely to regard me with much favor, since I was intimately connected with all of them. Nor did I initially feel comfortable with him. When he became Secretary-General, he had little practical idea of the scope or the limitations of his new job and obviously resented advice or suggestions from someone whom he regarded as a loyalist of the old regime. For my part, I was not prepared to sit by silently while Hammarskjold and U Thant were patronized and criticized on mistaken premises. Our early relationship was therefore strained.
Waldheim soon discovered that his job was quite unlike being a minister in a national government. He also learned which of his Secretariat colleagues were most likely to give him real help and support. As far as I was concerned, I found that his short temper and occasional rudeness were transitory results of the pressures of the job and quickly blew over, often with a generous apology, and I began to respect the wholehearted effort he was making in a difficult office. We thus eventually reached a better working relationship.
From A Life In Peace and War. Copyright 1987 by Sir Brian Urquhart, published by HarperCollins, New York. Reprinted by Permission.
