Remember

WHILE THE FINAL VERDICT is still out on Kurt Waldheim's involvement as a German lieutenant in World War II, newly publicized information is sufficiently damaging to leave no more doubt that the former Secretary General of the United Nations bears at least some measure of responsibility for Nazi atrocities.

We may never know precisely what Waldheim knew and did in Yugoslavia when he served in the command center of a notoriously brutal Nazi general, but we do know that Waldheim has, for more than 40 years, lied about his role and we do know that the unit he helped command killed thousands of partisans and unarmed hostages in Yugoslavia and helped deport thousands more Greek Jews to the death camps.

Only in the midst of his campaign for president of Austria, did Waldheim admit that he knew about Nazi atrocities against Yugoslavian partisans. He claims he did not actively participate in them, but his complicity in these activities and his subsequent deception taint him nonetheless.

The first round of elections is over. Waldheim won a plurality but did not receive the majority he needed; he will face a run-off election on June 8. He only needs four-tenths of a percent to win the presidency outright.

Now is the time for Waldheim to let the Austrian public and the international community in on all the details. That is unless he has something more to hide, which is not unlikely given the effort he has taken to bury his past. In the absence of a full and frank disclosure, the U.S. and the European nations should form an international commission to find the truth about Waldheim and to try him if necessary. His longtime prominence in the international community makes disclosure imperative.

It is disturbing that Austrian voters have not been more critical of Waldheim's refusal to come clean, particularly since documents revealed in the past week hint at a deeper involvement than the one Waldheim is currently asking us to swallow. We can only hope, with little optimism, that the June 8, vote will rebuff him.

The Austrian public may reward Waldheim for his deception, but Attorney General Edwin Meese III should not hesitate to place him under a U.S. ban against entering the country for suspected war criminals. If the ban is unwarranted, Waldheim will be able to end it anytime he is willing to tell his true autobiography--not the one written for more gullible, local audiences.

Forty years later it is too easy to forget the horrors that Naziism visited on hundreds of millions of people throughout the world. No doubt it is unpleasant to cast aspersions on a much beloved world statesman or to raise a fuss over a short visit to a cemetary at Bitburg. There is a temptation to resent what German Chancellor Helmut Kohl called, "an arrogance of the late-born," but there is no excuse for not facing the truth--as ugly as it may be.

The temptation to avoid memories of the Nazi horrors is even more disturbing than the memories themselves. Still the United Nations is witholding over 40,000 documents collected about war crimes from 1943 to 1948. They should be given to Israel. Not just Kurt Waldheim, but all who lived through that past must face up to it. As the President of West Germany said at the 40th anniversary of the defeat of the Nazis: "We Germans must look truth straight in the eye--without embellishment and without distortion... There can be no reconciliation without remembrance."

Dissenting Opinion

NO DOCUMENT HAS PROVEN, and no Austrian official has said, that Kurt Waldheim is an indictable /anti-Semitic war criminal.

Though further clarification is certainly needed from Waldheim, there are no grounds as yet to justify this ignominious label, and the majority should not judge him without more facts. They should also not psychoanalyze the Austrian people as they determine for themselves whom they will choose to be their president.

Waldheim should not be put on trial and, thereby, be artificially removed from the run-off election, but should be allowed to continue, pending resolution, and, if necessary, criminal indictments, of his possibly innocent, though stained, past.

Let us not forget what the Nazis have done in the past, but let us proceed toward the future, without unsubstantiated bias against Waldheim, leaving the past to affect the present whenever applicable, but only then.