Waldheim, Kurt (k

rt vält`hīm), 1918–, Austrian diplomat, secretary-general of the United Nations United Nations (UN), international organization established immediately after World War II. It replaced the League of Nations . In 1945, when the UN was founded, there were 51 members; 192 nations are now members of the organization (see table entitled United Nations
..... Click the link for more information. (1971–81) and president of Austria (1986–92). He entered diplomatic service after World War II, serving in France and Canada. When Austria entered the United Nations in 1958, Waldheim was a member of its delegation. Austria's permanent representative to the United Nations (1965–68), he later served (1968–70) as Austria's foreign minister and lost (1971) an election for the presidency of Austria.

Elected to a five-year term as UN secretary-general in Dec., 1971, Waldheim attempted, with little success, to end the Iran-Iraq war and the China-Vietnam war and to gain the release of American hostages in Iran. He was reelected in 1976 despite Third World opposition but was blocked from a third term by a Chinese veto in 1981. He was succeeded as secretary-general by Boutros Boutros-Ghali Boutros-Ghali, Boutros (b
..... Click the link for more information. .

In 1986 he was elected president of Austria, despite the scandal caused by the revelation that he had been an officer in a German army unit that committed atrocities in Yugoslavia during World War II; he denied any knowledge of the atrocities. An international investigation cleared him of complicity, but many felt he must have known more than he revealed. His tenure as president was marked by international isolation, and he did not run in 1992.

Bibliography

See his autobiography (1999).

Waldheim, Kurt

Waldheim, 1971

(credit: UPI)

(born Dec. 21, 1918, Sankt Andrä-Wördern, Austria—died June 14, 2007, Vienna) Fourth secretary-general of the United Nations (1972–81). After military service in the German army before and during World War II, he entered the Austrian foreign service and served successively as ambassador to Canada (1958–60) and the UN (1964–68, 1970–71) and as foreign minister (1968–70). Elected to succeed U Thant as UN secretary-general, he served two terms, during which he oversaw disaster relief in Bangladesh, Nicaragua, and Guatemala and peacekeeping missions in Cyprus, the Middle East, Angola, and Guinea. Denied a third term, he returned to Austria and ran for president in 1986. His candidacy became controversial when the dissemination of wartime and postwar documents pointed to his having been part of a German army unit that had deported most of the Jewish population of the Greek town of Salonika to Nazi death camps in 1943. Elected nonetheless, he was diplomatically isolated throughout his term (1986–92).