Amnesiac1

Refreshing The Memory Of An
AUSTRIAN AMNESIAC
by
Mordecai Goldberg

THE CHARACTERS:

KURT WALDHEIM...tall, thin, 60's
CAROL BROWNSTONE...attractive, 30's
HENRY HERZOG...short, heavyset, 70's
ADOLF EICHMANN
GENERAL LOHR
COLONEL WARNSTORFF
MAJOR HESS
MAJOR KRAUS
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
TV PRODUCER
PROSECUTOR/KING OF SWEDEN/INTERIOR DECORATOR
FIRING SQUAD LEADER/CAMERA PERSON

THE SET
The stage is used as a space in which, during Act One, we travel freely from the Secretary General's office in United Nations Building to Manhattan apartment of a young authoress who is helping Kurt Waldheim write the controversial "Biographical Chapter" of his latest book—and, in Act 2, to the WW II HQ of German Army Group ‘E’ in Northern Greece.

THE TIME
The play begins in 1982, at the end of Kurt Waldheim's second and final 5-year term as Secretary General of the U.N. It then takes us back to June 1944, before ending in 1986 on the occasion of Waldheim's election to the Austrian Presidency.

THE FIRST PROLOGUE

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, TV PRODUCER and CAMERA PERSON ENTER before curtain rises to address audience from center stage.

ART DIRECTOR: Ladies and gentlemen, if we can have your attention for just a moment to make an important announcement? Thank you. My name is Sharon Ginzburg. I am the Artistic Director of this theater. With me is David Cohen, an Executive Producer who works for The National Endowment For The Arts.

TV PRODUCER: The peeping Tom pointing his camera at you is Stan Horowitz.

After shooting audience from stage CAMERA PERSON will descend into auditorium and shoot at close quarters.

ART DIRECTOR: What we want to tell you is the exciting news that tonight’s performance of Refreshing the Memory of an Austrian Amnesiac is being videotaped as part of a bold new TV series entitled "Classics of the Modern American Theater," which will be broadcast during the new season on Public Television stations in the U.S. and around the world. You’ve probably noticed the audiovisual paraphernalia installed throughout the auditorium for that purpose. In a moment or so Mr Horowitz will be circulating among you to obtain documentary footage we can use to establish the fact that this performance is indeed being taped before a live audience.

TV PRODUCER: A circumstance helping us to at least partially persuade the average couch potato that he or she is almost actually participating in a genuine cultural event.

ART DIRECTOR: The reason we are revealing all of this to you now is that, while normally we prefer capturing only those reactions of an audience to what happens on stage which are completely honest and spontaneous—

TV PRODUCER: With this particular play there is a unique problem we are hoping you can help us solve.

ART DIRECTOR: Refreshing the Memory of an Austrian Amnesiac begins with a prologue in which Kurt Waldheim makes a speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize—

TV PRODUCER: A prize he never actually received—

ART DIRECTOR: And the one prize he wanted more than any other!

TV PRODUCER: No man has ever yearned more passionately to see his name inscribed on that elite list of peace makers!

ART DIRECTOR: It ’s common knowledge the Nobel Peace Prize has been turned into something of a political football recently—

TV PRODUCER: And it is also no secret that Kurt Waldheim carried a considerable amount of controversial baggage on his way to becoming Secretary General of the United Nations.

ART DIRECTOR: There were disturbing rumors about his preAnschluss Nazi affiliations—

TV PRODUCER: And questions raised in "certain circles" concerning his wartime activities as an officer in the German Wehrmacht—

ART DIRECTOR: Questions Mr Waldheim answered by claiming that, like so many other Austrians, he was not a Nazi war criminal, but an innocent victim of Hitler’s despotic regime—

TV PRODUCER: Claims that never completely satisfied all of his critics—

ART DIRECTOR: Including the "proIsraeli clique" within the Nobel Peace Prize Committee—

TV PRODUCER: All of which explains why his acceptance speech is delivered in the form of an imaginary prologue—

ART DIRECTOR: And why, within such a totally subjective context it is not unrealistic for a character like Kurt Waldheim to expect that his speech will receive nothing less than a standing ovation from his "Stockholm audience"—which is what he logically perceives you, who are sitting out there, to be.

TV PRODUCER: The difficulty with such a scenario, of course, is that this speech the prologue requires him to make is not the kind which would spontaneously cause an audience to respond in accordance with its maker’s delusionary expectations.

ART DIRECTOR: The effect on Waldheim of failing to get from you what the stage directions clearly indicate to him will be "an emotional epiphany" is, to say the least, profoundly disconcerting—

TV PRODUCER: And so it should be! Can there be any doubt that the sole purpose of the prologue is to humiliate the hero of Refreshing the Memory of an Austrian Amnesiac at the play’s very outset?

ART DIRECTOR: I couldn’t agree with you more, David! But nevertheless, and contrary to what some Viennese critics are saying about his "Zionist oriented political agenda," Goldberg’s motives for preliminarily demoralizing his protagonist are not as theatrically counterproductive or even as antiAustrian as they might seem to be at first glance.

TV PRODUCER: Certainly not! When properly seen in its symbolic terms, Goldberg’s seemingly selfsubversive prologue brilliantly exposes his audience to several threshold motifs essential to their analysis of Waldheim’s tragically flawed character.

ART DIRECTOR: First; there is the antiSemitic theme threading its insidious way through even the most enlightened of Germanic psyches. Goldberg’s boobytrapped prologue surely seems to validate Waldheim’s stereotypical convictions about "Jewish duplicity."

TV PRODUCER: And it is undeniably true that no nonJewish playwright would even dream of hatching such a treasonous plot against his own leading man!

ART DIRECTOR: But, while Waldheim finds ample proof for his claims of reverse discrimination in such a blatant manifestation of "Zionist hate mongering," he internalizes his "justifiable" outrage—shrewdly calculating it would be wiser for him to turn his other cheek and let you, the audience, respond to this interracial slap in the face with the empathy an act so obviously unChristian is bound to arouse.

TV PRODUCER: Second; The deliberately fiascoed Peace Prize acceptance speech quintessentially epitomizes Waldheim’s lifelong lack of charisma—

ART DIRECTOR: A congenital defect he has been unable to cure despite his Herculean efforts to the contrary—including his election and reelection to what is, at least technically, the highest office any statesman on this planet can occupy!

TV PRODUCER: Indeed, it is the fundamental fact of Kurt Waldheim’s life that he has been chronically unable to win the hearts of those in whose minds he has achieved a modest degree of authentic celebrity status.

ART DIRECTOR: Finally; the "Minefield" ramifications of Goldberg’s prologue confirm Waldheim’s worst fear that Refreshing the Memory of an Austrian Amnesiac was never meant to portray him as the "much misunderstood man" discussed at length in the play’s Prefatory Remarks.

TV PRODUCER: Consequently, from the moment the curtain rises he knows he will have to watch every move he makes—

ART DIRECTOR: And every word he utters so as to avoid losing what he now perceives could become a deadly game of inquisitorial cat and mouse—

TV PRODUCER: A game Kurt Waldheim is an expert at playing!

ART DIRECTOR: Yes. He has been eluding the cat’s paw of injustice since that day he first entered this world as one more hapless Austrian caught in the middle of a power struggle between Europe’s major nation states to fill the vacuum left behind by a recently collapsed Austro/Hungarian Empire.

TV PRODUCER: Let no one underestimate the survival skills of these mildmannered Austrians!

ART DIRECTOR: Or their tableturning capacities!

TV PRODUCER: Adolf Hitler was an Austrian—

ART DIRECTOR: As was Ernst Kaltenbrunner and Adolf Eichmann!

TV PRODUCER: Thus, Waldheim might react to his being ambushed by the author in the prologue of Refreshing the Memory of an Austrian Amnesiac not as a mouse—

ART DIRECTOR: But as a man whose brain sizzles with the killer instincts of a cornered rat!

TV PRODUCER: Which is exactly the state of mind Goldberg wants Waldheim to be in when his play begins—

ART DIRECTOR: And a state of mind the actor portraying Waldheim would ordinarily attain by simply studying the script of Refreshing the Memory of an Austrian Amnesiac—

TV PRODUCER: Or its Author’s Prefatory Remarks—in which he describes Kurt Waldheim as: "Typifying Austria’s collective case of amnesia concerning the role it played in Hitler’s plans for the Aryanization of a deJewified Europe."

ART DIRECTOR: All of which means that finding a professional actor willing and able to play the leading man in Refreshing the Memory of an Austrian Amnesiac turned out to be a casting nightmare.

TV PRODUCER: First of all there are very few actors tall and lean enough to convincingly resemble Waldheim’s somewhat "Lincolnesque" physique—

ART DIRECTOR: Among the select few who qualify anatomically—such as Donald Sutherland, Jeremy Irons and Jeff Goldblum; all of our inquiries were met with a variety of moral, political, artistic and ethnic objections. Only Peter O’Toole expressed any enthusiasm for climbing into the skin of "a character whose unpopularity rivals that of Judas and Shylock"—and he declined our offer because of "certain practical considerations" he was "confident" we would appreciate—

TV PRODUCER: Which of course we did! After all, Mr O’Toole was in fact only telling us what we always feared was true: That in the present hysterically anti-neoNazi climate, any wellknown actor playing the Waldheim role would be committing professional suicide.

ART DIRECTOR: Our only hope was to find a totally obscure professional actor with nothing to lose but his lack of stardom—

TV PRODUCER: Or the kind of rank amateur who is starring in tonight’s production—

ART DIRECTOR: A man whose complete lack of stage experience made it necessary for the author of Refreshing the Memory of an Austrian Amnesiac to write the special prologue we have been discussing.

TV PRODUCER: The result of which was rather remarkably effective in compelling (name of actor playing Waldheim) to actually emulate his character’s paranoid personality.

ART DIRECTOR: An effect, however, that diminishes with each performance he gives—

TV PRODUCER: To the point where the need now exists for this new little trick we are asking you to play on him with your standing ovation—

ART DIRECTOR: An ovation we are hoping will reawaken his anxieties about the author’s intent to publicly humiliate and ridicule him.

TV PRODUCER: Technically, of course, you will only be doing what the stage directions in Refreshing the Memory of an Austrian Amnesiac require you to do—

ART DIRECTOR: A requirement Waldheim knows to be manifestly impractical—

TV PRODUCER: And in that sense, I suppose it is possible he might perceive your cooperation with us as an act of conspiracy which, at least in his subjective terms, borders on being criminal.

ART DIRECTOR: We should also tell you the author of Refreshing the Memory of an Austrian Amnesiac has expressed his own moral reservations about involving you as active participants in a plot where, by definition, the role played by an audience should be entirely passive—

TV PRODUCER: With the understanding, of course, that exercising one’s critical faculties as a member of an audience is distinguishable from the kind of physical act we are talking about.

ART DIRECTOR: What troubles our author the most, I think, is that by using you in the conspiratorial manner we propose, your objectivity might somehow become compromised.

TV PRODUCER: He seems to think of you as some kind of jury, charged with the solemn task of passing judgment on Kurt Waldheim’s guilt or innocence—

ART DIRECTOR: And the success or the failure of his play—over which you do indeed possess the power of life and death.

TV PRODUCER: The author has additionally indicated his ethical—if not his moral—qualms over the role you will be playing in our manipulation of the TV audience into believing this "standing ovation" we are "staging" is a genuinely spontaneous phenomenon.

ART DIRECTOR: In this regard it’s our opinion the author’s Talmudic concerns about such a matter is exaggerated by the need he feels to be absolutely rectitudinous in the handling of this play’s controversial subject

TV PRODUCER: A subject which, admittedly, exposes all of those involved with its theatricalization to charges of casting stones at a man whose sins we ourselves have committed—

ART DIRECTOR: If not individually, then as members of a society, a culture or a civilization whose history is written in the blood, toil, tears and sweat of countless innocent victims—

TV PRODUCER: Like the American Indians; upon whose ancient hunting grounds this theater now stands—

ART DIRECTOR: And the black Africans from whose enslavement the criminal origin of all our prosperity can still be traced—

TV PRODUCER: Or the Vietnamese—

ART DIRECTOR: Or the Mexicans—

TV PRODUCER: And yet we can hardly describe today’s television audience as an exploited class—

ART DIRECTOR: It is much more sophisticated than our author gives it credit for being—

TV PRODUCER: Especially those who watch the kind of quality programming funded by The National Endowment For The Arts!

ART DIRECTOR: An organization whose cultural integrity is unimpeachable!

TV PRODUCER: So it is, ladies and gentlemen, that we are quite confident that nearly everyone who sees this show will understand why you did what we are hoping you will do—

ART DIRECTOR: [Checking watch.] In exactly 4 minutes from now.

TV PRODUCER: We aren’t asking you to commit a crime. All we want is your help in orchestrating a reality that might otherwise spoil what is a sublimely moralistic work of art.

ART DIRECTOR: In the final analysis, however, it is up to you, ladies and gentlemen, whether you will temporarily surrender your freedom of conscience for a common cultural cause.

TV PRODUCER: But, if we have failed to persuade some of you on that score, now is the time to stand up and be counted—

ART DIRECTOR: Anyone not wishing to participate in this harmless little hoax of ours should move to the rear of the auditorium, and remain there until the prologue is concluded.

A pause to accommodate those taking advantage of the offer. Those sitting in rear of auditorium may be encouraged to come forward and fill vacancies in front rows. CAMERA PERSON should be in position to shoot business that follows.

TV PRODUCER: And now, ladies and gentlemen, let us use these few minutes remaining before the prologue actually begins to rehearse your standing ovation—

ART DIRECTOR: Which is cued by the last line of Waldheim’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, when he says—

TV PRODUCER: "And if he does not apologize for construing this token of his worldly esteem in such hubristic terms it is only because Kurt Waldheim is not accepting this prize for himself, but on behalf of all those Unknown Soldiers whose anonymous acts of conscience and personal courage make them the true heroes in mankind’s unrelenting, and eventually victorious, war for peace."

Presumably audience will not respond to this cue, or, if it does, will do so in a way that is not satisfactory to ARTISTIC DIRECTOR and TV PRODUCER, who will thereafter coach audience improvisationally along the following suggested lines:

ART DIRECTOR: That was it, ladies and gentlemen; that was your cue! Alright—let’s try it again.

ART DIRECTOR: [To audience.] I’m afraid you’re being a little too timid—

TV PRODUCER: And not enough attention is being paid to your facial expressions. We mustn’t give the TV audience an impression your emotions have not been genuinely stirred by Waldheim’s speech—

ART DIRECTOR: A speech that is manifestly uninspiring with its cloying sentimentality and hackneyed language—

TV PRODUCER: To say nothing of the lackluster style in which Waldheim articulates his banalities about "Unknown Soldiers" and "the War for Peace"—

ART DIRECTOR: Maybe it would help if you imagined you had just heard Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address—

TV PRODUCER: Or Marc Antony’s Funeral Oration—

ART DIRECTOR: Or Martin Luther King’s I Have A Dream Speech—

TV PRODUCER: Or Lenin’s Finland Station Jeremiad Against The Mensheviks—

ART DIRECTOR: Or Hitler’s Reichstag Fire Diatribe.

TV PRODUCER: Let’s remember, ladies and gentlemen, the whole purpose of this exercise is to convince Kurt Waldheim that his hollow rhetoric has somehow whipped you into an emotional frenzy—

ART DIRECTOR: But a controlled emotional frenzy; one that is not inconsistent with your elite status as that privileged few who are invited by the King of Sweden to attend the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm each year.

TV PRODUCER: Please don’t get discouraged folks—all things considered, you are all doing remarkably well—

ART DIRECTOR: You must forgive us for being perfectionists—

TV PRODUCER: Remember: this show will be seen by millions upon millions of people. But I see we’ve only enough time for one last dress rehearsal before the houselights come down for the prologue’s opening curtain—

ART DIRECTOR: Which reminds me to tell you that while the prologue normally ends with a blackout on Waldheim’s embarrassed reaction to not receiving the standing ovation he expects, tonight the stage lighting will fade to black slowly, so we can all savor what is sure to be his state of absolute amazement.

TV PRODUCER: What we would like to happen then is that, as the lights fade, your applause will just as gradually decrescendo—

ART DIRECTOR: The resulting effect being, we hope, that the stage for the start of the play will be set by a brief period of complete silence and total darkness.

TV PRODUCER: And there is just one more thing I’d like to add before your dress rehearsal, ladies and gentlemen: my sincerest gratitude for the unheralded sacrifice you are making not only for the enjoyment of your fellow human beings, but for what I believe to be their moral edification by the watching of this play.

ART DIRECTOR: And now, for the final time—

Houselights dim to darkness. Ovation dies to silence as audience sits and curtain rises for:

THE SECOND PROLOGUE

Stage is black void but for lighted lectern at its center and large gold disc replicating Nobel Peace Prize suspended in midair and illuminated by a spotlight. KING OF SWEDEN ENTERS dressed in ceremonial tails, over which he wears furs and primitive Viking trappings of an ancient Scandinavian monarch. He addresses audience from lectern.

KING OF SWEDEN: Members of the Permanent Committee, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen —and citizens of the planet earth: on behalf of the Swedish people and the Alfred Nobel Foundation I welcome you to Stockholm on the occasion of this first live television coverage of the Nobel Prize Award ceremony. I have been informed that more than 3 billion human beings are at this moment tuned in to these proceedings; making them the single most witnessed event in the entire history of mankind. And so it is appropriate that we begin with the awarding of the one prize ranking above all others in its universal significance for all humanity: the Nobel Prize for Peace. This year’s recipient is, of course, Kurt Waldheim, who for 10 years occupied the world’s highest (and its most thankless!) political office. "Kurt Waldheim" is a name that has come to be known—even famous—among not only his diplomatic colleagues, but by those most ordinary men and women who comprise his global constituency. But little is known about the man behind the name. Some of his critics (and what Peace Prize recipient has not had his share of critics?) say the mystery surrounding him has been deliberately fabricated to conceal some dark and sinister secret in his past! Others claim there is nothing behind the Waldheim facade except a mind whose mediocrity is essential for presiding over an international debating society like the U.N.

Projection screen is lowered to obscure the Peace Prize replica—or replica itself may be turned into projection screen.

KING OF SWEDEN: But I believe after seeing this film about him, you will agree—the best kept secret about Kurt Waldheim is his deep and abiding humility.

Lectern light is extinguished. Following film is projected on screen:

KURT WALDHEIM: THE MAN BEHIND THE NAME

A Joint Production of the Alfred Nobel Foundation
and the
Austrian Ministry of Information

TELECINE 1:
WW I Newsreel footage depicting trench warfare, early armored vehicles, aerial dogfights, rural and urban devastation. Soundeffects of war fade under classical music with somber motif [Berlioz’ "Symphonie Funebre et Triomphale."].

TELECINE 2:
Montage of typical Austrian scenes [Underscored in pastoral style of Gustav Mahler.] which leads us into typical Austrian village where we enter typically humble Austrian cottage.

1. INT. HUMBLE COTTAGE. DAY.
[FRAU WALDHEIM IN BED HAVING RECENTLY GIVEN BIRTH TO SON ‘KURT’. PRIEST AND HERR WALDHEIM IN ATTENDANCE.]

PRIEST:Mark my words Mr and Mrs Waldheim; there is something very special about this new son of yours!

TELECINE 3:
Montage showing Waldheim’s idyllic childhood as described by NARRATOR.

NARRATOR: Despite the prophecies of his future greatness there seemed very little in Kurt Waldheim’s earliest years indicating he was destined for anything but the fate of an ordinary Austrian. He lived the normal life of a normal Austrian boy: playing the same games Austrian children have always played; wending his way to the ancestral Austrian elementary school; nestling in the bosom of his mother’s Austrian love; and growing taller each day in the sheltering shadow of his father’s oaklike Austrian masculinity.

TELECINE 4:
Triumph of the Will footage showing Hitler as new German Chancellor, Nuremburg rally, mobilization of Nazi industrial and military might, etc.

NARRATOR:The year is 1933. As a former Austrian corporal turns Germany’s first experiment at democracy into the modern world’s first totalitarian regime, Kurt Waldheim graduates from high school.

2. INT. VIENNESE CAFE. DAY.
[WALDHEIM AS ADOLESCENT WITH PRIEST AND PARENTS CELEBRATING HIGHSCHOOL GRADUATION.]

HERR W: Well my son, now that you’ve finished school, what are your plans?
WALDHEIM: I’ve decided to join the Austrian cavalry, father.
FRAU W: According to the law you still have another year before your military service becomes compulsory, don’t you?
WALDHEIM: But by volunteering now, mother, I will not have to interrupt my university studies later.
HERR W: The boy’s absolutely right! He has analyzed the situation brilliantly!
PRIEST: And what will you be studying at the university, Kurt?
WALDHEIM: Law and diplomacy, father.

PRIEST: Wouldn’t it be financially more rewarding to become a doctor of medicine?
WALDHEIM: For me, there are more important things in life than money, father.
PRIEST: Such as?
WALDHEIM: Such as: truth; justice, and; the continued survival of my native land in the coming tug-of-war between Austria’s powerful neighbors for European domination.

TELECINE 5:
Newsreel of German Wehrmacht marching into Austria and Hitler’s triumphant return to Vienna.

NARRATOR: On 12 March 1938 German troops invade Austria. Two days later Hitler returns to Vienna—the city where, 25 years earlier, his aspirations for artistic immortality were ridiculed and smashed.

TELECINE 6:
Shots of Waldheim wearing Nazi Stormtrooper’s uniform participating in bookburning, Jewbaiting, antiRed riots, etc. as narrated.

NARRATOR: Under the pressure exerted by his German masters, the undergraduate Waldheim joins certain "social" organizations in his continuing struggle to remain "politically viable" for the sake of Austria’s national survival

3. INT. COTTAGE. DAY.
[WALDHEIM WEARING UNIFORM OF GERMAN ARMY LIEUTENANT, WITH PRIEST AND PARENTS.]

HERR W: [Reading document.] There must be some legal loophole in these orders activating you for duty on the Russian front?
WALDHEIM: My only other option is a Nazi firing squad, papa.
FRAU W: When the Bernstein’s son got his orders they shipped him off to America.
PRIEST: It was the same story with the Goldberg and the Wiesenthal boys.
WALDHEIM: Some of my best friends are Jews—
PRIEST: As are mine!
WALDHEIM: But it must be said that only they seem to have the gelt and the ratlike skills it takes to abandon Austria’s sinking ship of state.
PRIEST: Perhaps it is God’s will that Austria be purified of His "chosen race"—such are the mysterious ways in which He orchestrates the evolution of Austria’s racial identity.

TELECINE 7:
Waldheim is seen wearing shabby overcoat and carrying satchel as he hobbles down Viennese street on crutches. Police whistle is heard. Waldheim abandons use of crutches and flees, with plainclothed Gestapo agents in pursuit.

4. INT. CHURCH VESTIBULE. DAY.
[WALDHEIM CATCHING BREATH IN SHADOWS NEAR DOOR. PRIEST ENTERS FROM OUTSIDE.]

PRIEST: I told them you turned into the Koenigstrasse.
WALDHEIM: Thank you, father. I apologize for having put you into such a compromising situation.
PRIEST: Lying to the Gestapo is not a sin my son. But why are they chasing you? You don’t look Jewish.
WALDHEIM: Don’t you recognize me?
PRIEST: Bless my soul if it isn’t young Kurt Waldheim! [Indicating satchel.] So that’s it—you are carrying messages for the Resistance. I heard through the grapevine that your father was one of the Most Wanted antiNazis in Vienna.
WALDHEIM: Actually I’m engaged in activities that are far more dangerous and subversive than merely assassinating Germans or sabotaging their war machine. Inside this satchel, masquerading as my doctoral dissertation on The Federalist Principles Of Constantin Frantz, is a document upon which Austria’s postwar role as a moral superpower will be erected!
PRIEST: No wonder Himmler’s goon squads are pursuing you! Berlin appreciates the power of ideas—especially those of a man like Constantin Frantz! Although it was my impression Frantz was one of Hitler’s favorite philosophers.

WALDHEIM: Frantz is a much misunderstood man, father—which is partly what my thesis is all about.
PRIEST: So the Nazis’ fear that your reinterpretation of Frantz’s apparently protofascist ideology could undermine their intellectual legitimacy—is that what you are saying?
WALDHEIM: The German’s aren’t that clever, father. Their suspicions about me are based simply on my civilian status—
PRIEST: Hence those phony crutches. You are faking a war wound, is that it?

WALDHEIM: Not quite. The wound I received on the Eastern Front is real enough; but it has healed sufficiently to enable me to track down the research materials I need, and which the university has scattered throughout Vienna because of the Allied bombing.
PRIEST: But, if you’ve been officially discharged from the Wehrmacht for medical reasons, I don’t understand why you don’t just show the Gestapo your demobilization papers?
WALDHEIM: [With burst of anger.] What is this, father—a third degree, or some kind of Holy Inquisition?
PRIEST: No, no my son; I am only curious—

Air raid siren is heard.

PRIEST: Come, we’ll be safe in the catacombs during the air raid—and you can explain the apparent contradictions in your story—
WALDHEIM: I have a better use for this air raid! [Starts to exit.]
PRIEST: Where are you going!
WALDHEIM: There is a manuscript buried in the archives at the Schlosspark I need to complete my chapter on "The Austrianization of Frantz’s Theory on Germany’s Manifest Destiny!"
PRIEST:Wait! In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost I bless you and these anachronistic exploits of yours—whose mystery I will accept on faith as being somehow divinely inspired.

TELECINE 8:
Newsreel of: end of WW II in Europe; postwar rebuilding, and; events of period 1946-72 as narrated hereafter.

NARRATOR:The year is 1946. As Austria emerges from the still-smoldering devastation of World War II only to find itself caught in the midst of a Cold War, Kurt Waldheim begins his diplomatic career as a minor functionary in the Foreign Office—and then as Private Secretary to the Foreign Minister himself. During the next 20 years: He serves in the Paris Embassy; Becomes Head of the Foreign Ministry Personnel Department; Leads the Canadian Mission; Becomes Director General of Political Affairs; Leads Austria’s first delegation to the United Nations; Becomes the Foreign Secretary of Austria, and; is elected to the office of Secretary General of the U.N.

TELECINE 9:
Newsreel montage of events during years 1972–82 in which U.N. and Waldheim played a role, as narrated hereafter.

NARRATOR:In his 10 years as the world’s Number 1 diplomat Kurt Waldheim advanced the cause of peace not only from the safety of his headquarters in the United Nations building, but at the front lines and in the very trenches of such international hot spots as: The Sinai Peninsula; Cyprus; Lebanon; South Africa and, of course, Teheran—

TELECINE 10:
Newsreel of Waldheim’s 1980 mission to Iran on behalf of American Embassy hostages.

NARRATOR:Yes indeed; who can ever forget Kurt Waldheim’s oneman mission to rescue the American hostages in Teheran?

5. EXT. IRANIAN CEMETERY. DAY.
[WALDHEIM SURROUNDED BY ARMED IRANIAN REVOLUTIONARIES AT SHRINE TO THOSE MARTYRED BY SAVAK. WESTERN TV CREWS ARE COVERING THE ACTION.]

IRANIAN 1: [Prodding WALDHEIM with automatic weapon.] Don’t just stand there, Mr Secretary General—
IRANIAN 2: If you want to atone for the sins of the Shah’s Secret Police, get down on your plutocratic knees for the victims of Savak!

Repeatedly menaced by his tormentors WALDHEIM falls to his knees.

IRANIAN 3: We demand the Shah’s return!
IRANIAN 4: And the billions of dollars he stole from us!

IRANIAN 1: Death to the American spies!
IRANIAN 2: Death to all Satanic imperialists!
IRANIAN 3: [Putting weapon to WALDHEIM’s head.] Is there anything you would like to say for the cameras—
IRANIAN 4: Before we blow your CIA-bought-and-paid-for-brains out, Mr Secretary General?

WALDHEIM: I wouldn’t have come to Teheran if I was afraid of dying—

Mock praise from IRANIANS.

WALDHEIM: My entire career has been spent on the razor’s edge of life and death—

Another display of mock admiration from IRANIANS.

WALDHEIM: Nevertheless, I ask you to be merciful.

Triumphant demonstration by IRANIANS over Waldheim’s apparent capitulation.

WALDHEIM: Not for myself—but for the sake of your revolution. A revolution whose sacred Moslem principles, among other things, forbids the mistreatment of one who is a guest in your land.

IRANIANS withdraw, as if thunderstruck by this citation from the Koran.

WALDHEIM: [Rising majestically.] Yes, my Iranian friends—I haven’t come here to save American skins from your righteous indignation; but to save you from yourselves!

IRANIANS kneel before WALDHEIM as if he were a prophet.

IRANIAN 1: Allah be praised!

Other IRANIANS join in chant, rocking on knees as they salute WALDHEIM with waves of religious reverence.

TELECINE 11:
Waldheim on U.N. podium where he is receiving a standing ovation from General Assembly.

NARRATOR: Hence it was that in 1982 Kurt Waldheim said farewell to the U.N. and passed on that sacred torch of peace to his successor—a torch which burned a little bit brighter than when he had received it 10 years before.

END OF FILM

KING OF SWEDEN: But perhaps tonight this most modest of celebrities will share with us some of the secrets about the "Mystery Man" hiding behind his distinguished name. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my privilege to introduce you to the recipient of this year’s Nobel Prize for Peace—the Honorable Dr Kurt Waldheim!

WALDHEIM ENTERS with deliberate pace, enjoying every microsecond of this, his finest moment. Arriving at lectern he receives medal from King, who drapes it around his neck. EXIT KING OF SWEDEN. WALDHEIM pauses dramatically to compose himself as he contemplates medal.

WALDHEIM: [Choked with emotion.] Ladies and gentlemen, you must forgive me if I take some time to organize my thoughts—one simply cannot anticipate the emotional upheaval one goes through on an occasion like this because there really are no other occasions like this! For Kurt Waldheim, at least, this is the crowning moment of his life—the pinnacle toward which he has been climbing since the dawn of his consciousness. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Kurt Waldheim is no stranger to the universal struggle for selfrealization! First there was his struggle to simply survive his birth in the Austria of November 1918—an Austria devastated by the first of those two global catastrophes that would bracket his childhood. Next came the struggle to acquire the academic credentials needed for his chosen career as a diplomat—a struggle made that much crueler by the ironic fact that on his 21st birthday Herr Hitler decided to invade Poland!

Thus for Kurt Waldheim the writing of his doctoral dissertation meant not only digging through Vienna’s bombed out rubble for research materials, but eluding a Gestapo suspicious of his civilian status—a status he had earned with the spilling of his blood on the Eastern Front. [Pulls trouser leg up.] To this day he carries in his leg the steel splinters from a Soviet grenade as a souvenir of that summer of ’41 he spent in Russia! So, what his critics say is true: Kurt Waldheim was an officer in Hitler’s Wehrmacht. Not that he had much choice in the matter! Like thousands of other Austrian pawns in the Nazis’ geopolitical chessgame, he could either obey the orders of his German masters, or face an SS firing squad!

And, no sooner had the hot war ended than the cold one began. Once again Austria found itself being squeezed in the vice of history; its people pulverized in the ideological crucible of superpower politics. For Kurt Waldheim those early years of East-West confrontation marked the beginning of a new and final struggle. Made wise beyond his 27 years by the living nightmare of two world wars and the constant specter of a third, the young lawyer/diplomat embarked on a oneman crusade for global peace. That crusade has lasted more than 35 years. In the course of it Kurt Waldheim has grown old, and still he has not reached his Jerusalem—that holiest of cities where one day the flag of perpetual peace will be raised and recognized by all the peoples of this earth as the supreme symbol of their common nationality.

No. Kurt Waldheim has not entered the gates of his imaginary Jerusalem, and maybe he never will; but tonight as he stands here in Stockholm gazing from this highest of honorary altitudes, at long last he can actually see that mythic skyline just beyond the horizon! It is a sight God permits only the most exalted mortals to enjoy, as His scriptures tell us: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for above all others they shall dwell forever with Him in Whose image they have been made most perfectly".

And if he does not apologize for construing this token of his worldly esteem in such hubristic terms it is only because Kurt Waldheim is not accepting this prize for himself, but on behalf of all those Unknown Soldiers whose anonymous acts of conscience and personal courage make them the true heroes in mankind’s unrelenting—and eventually victorious—war for peace.

Actors should probably be in audience to start standing ovation meant to occur at end of Waldheim’s speech. After ovation begins, stage lighting will slowly fade on WALDHEIM who, throughout applause, exhibits bewildered reaction thereto.

End Prologues

ACT ONE
Scene 1

Office of Secretary General of U.N. Stylized set suggests a vast room whose grandiose proportions have been carefully—if rather tastelessly—calculated to impress on anyone meeting with Secretary General an overwhelming sense of their own insignificance. This effect is enhanced by dehumanizing scale of oversize doors leading into office, and distance one must travel to reach Secretary General’s massive desk—where one must sit on a chair so deliberately squat as to make even tallest visitor look up to man on other side of desk.

Suspended above center stage is an enormous U.N. insignia—a gigantic mobile-cum-chandelier executed in a dove motif. At rear, filling space between desk and doors, 12 marble columns are arranged in a shallow arc. 4 of them serve as pedestals for bronze busts of Trygvie Lie, Dag Hammarskjold, U Thant, and Kurt Waldheim; all of which are illuminated by individual spotlights hidden in flies. At curtain WALDHEIM, DECORATOR and 2 WORKMEN discovered in process of reconfiguring columns and busts; the problem being that Waldheim would like his newly installed bust to somehow enjoy a position of subtle superiority over those of his distinguished predecessors.

DECORATOR: If we were dealing with 5 busts, the solution, of course, would be to simply put yours in the center—

WALDHEIM: That would still violate the principle of chronologicality.

DECORATOR: I thought you had decided to dispense with chronological considerations.

WALDHEIM: No, no—I said it would be desirable if we could find some rationale other than chronology for the arranging of these sculptures—some qualitative norm, perhaps, that might allow us the luxury of being more creative in the way they are displayed. But so far, that other rationale has eluded us, has it not?

DECORATOR: What about giving your bust an extra nuance of stature on the theory that, as the most immediately previous Secretary General, your contemporary influence will be felt for some considerable time after your departure?

WALDHEIM: And what happens to me when my successor becomes "the most immediately previous Secretary General?" No. What I am looking for is some immutable scheme by which my prominence is permanent.

DECORATOR: What about an alphabetical scheme? The odds are against there ever being a future Secretary General whose last name begins with an X, Y or Z.

WALDHEIM: What good does that do me?

DECORATOR: At least that way your bust will always be on one end.

WALDHEIM: Yes, one of two ends—and what is there about my end that makes it so manifestly special?

DECORATOR: Well, let’s try it and see. [To WORKMEN.] Move Mr Waldheim’s pillar to the extreme right. [WORKMEN shift pillar. Result is studied.] All right, now to the extreme left.

Once again pillar is shifted and result studied by WALDHEIM and DECORATOR.

WALDHEIM: I don’t notice any difference, do you?

DECORATOR: It seemed to me I discerned a subtle but nevertheless quite definite distinction between the left and right effect—with the advantage being on the right, and probably attributable to an unknown architectural factor, or some obscure psychological principle.

HERZOG ENTERS unnoticed via large doors.

DECORATOR: But for whatever reason, see if you don’t agree with me when your bust is reshifted to the right. [WORKMEN shift pillar to right.] Well, what do you think?

WALDHEIM: I suppose it depends on where one is standing—[Changing his position he notices Herzog.] Henry! You are just the man we need! If you wouldn’t mind giving us the benefit of your notoriously objective opinion in such matters?

WALDHEIM takes HERZOG (who has been surveying room since entrance) by arm and leads him to spot where he thinks effect of his bust can be best appreciated.

WALDHEIM: The problem we are having is to separate me from my distinguished colleagues without being obvious about it.

HERZOG: [After briefly analyzing problem.] My solution would be to use a pillar that is just slightly taller than the others—no more than an inch should be sufficient to create the imperceptible effect you are looking for.

WALDHEIM: That’s absolutely brilliant Henry—as always, you have hit the nail squarely on its head!

HERZOG: I wish I could take credit for the idea, Kurt—but it was actually a trick invented by Mussolini when they were installing his bust in the Fascist pantheon.

WALDHEIM: [To DECORATOR.] Having a slightly taller column built shouldn’t be much of a problem, should it?

DECORATOR: No, Mr Secretary General. It’s simply a question of modifying the specifications—[Making notations in small book.]

WALDHEIM: I don’t mean a manufacturing problem. Such a modification must be handled with the utmost discretion.

DECORATOR: Naturally; and so it shall. You have my word on that. I will supervise everything on a personal basis.

WALDHEIM: Including the substitution of the new column for the old one.

DECORATOR: [Writing.] Including the substitution of the new column for the old one—

WALDHEIM: Which should be accomplished in the dead of night.

DECORATOR: [Writing.] Dead of night. Is there anything else we should consider before I go?

WALDHEIM: [Crossing to desk where HERZOG has seated himself.] Sunday night would be best. There is never anyone working in the building on Sunday night. I will make the necessary arrangements with the security people.

DECORATOR: [Making final note.] Sunday night. Fine.

EXIT DECORATOR with WORKMEN.

WALDHEIM: [Sitting behind desk.] Thank God that petty affair is finished! And yet, Henry, you would be surprised how much of my energies as Secretary General have been spent dignifying what was once a scandalously Spartan—if not downright shabby—office from which to govern the entire world!

HERZOG: [Glancing around room.] You certainly have left your mark on the decor, Kurt!

WALDHEIM: You don’t think it’s too ostentatious?

HERZOG: Certainly not!

WALDHEIM: Some of my critics have compared it to the office Speer designed for Hitler in the Neue Reichskanzlei.

HERZOG: It’s unfortunate the way Speer is always being tarred with Hitler’s brush.

WALDHEIM: And Speer isn’t the only one who finds himself constantly victimized by the excesses of Nazism—but unfortunately we haven’t time to discuss that fascinating subject. [Opening file folder.] Now for my final transaction sitting behind this desk—

HERZOG: Are you quite sure you want to spend these last minutes of your Secretary Generalship on such a mundane matter as this standard publishing contract?

WALDHEIM: Did you watch the speech I gave in Stockholm yesterday?

HERZOG: Of course.

WALDHEIM: [Taking front page of newspaper from folder.] And I expect you saw the front page of this morning’s New York Times—[Hands front page to HERZOG.] Even they had to admit I gave quite a performance.

HERZOG: It was all very impressive—[Returning page to WALDHEIM.] Especially that spontaneous standing ovation the audience gave you.

WALDHEIM: [Carefully replacing page in folder and withdrawing another document.] All of which explains why this "standard" contract for the publishing of my book should no longer be standard; and why I've chosen to spend these final moments of my Secretary Generalship renegotiating its obsolete terms with you. The fact is, Henry, that Kurt Waldheim’s front page status has made his forthcoming book a potential best seller.

HERZOG: You know what they say about yesterday’s newspapers, Kurt.

WALDHEIM: Yes. Tomorrow they will be wrapping garbage in the story of my standing ovation. That is why we must strike now, while the iron is hot.

HERZOG: The presses are ready to roll. All we need is that biographical chapter you decided to add. Is Carol having a problem with the writing of that chapter?

WALDHEIM: No; as a matter of fact, she’s due back from Austria today with the final draft. We thought it would be a good idea if Carol re turned to the scene of my "crimes" and her own ancestral roots in order to add an atmosphere of authenticity to the biographical chapter; a chapter, by the way, which now ends happily and triumphantly with my winning of the Nobel Peace Prize. So there will be no problem with the writing of that section. It’s delivery to you, however, could become problematical depending on the outcome of our renegotiating this contract.

HERZOG: "Renegotiating" is not only a word that strikes terror in the heart of any publisher, Kurt—as a lawyer you must know it is the first shot in a very long war of words—one that is hardly calculated to expedite the publication of your book.

WALDHEIM: We don’t have time for beating around legal bushes, Henry. I admit you have the upper hand litigationwise; but I'm offering you something your house has never had—a bona fide best seller!

HERZOG: I have never been in the business of publishing best sellers.

WALDHEIM: For Christ’s sake, Henry, your highminded principles don’t require you to reject a bonanza when one falls in your lap, do they? If the dollars bother you they can be used for a variety of noble purposes! My research indicates the Nobel Peace Prize publicity alone will increase our estimated sales from ten to three hundred thousand copies—and, with that standing ovation for my performance in Stockholm five hundred thousand is not unrealistic.

HERZOG: Your research?

WALDHEIM: [Handing HERZOG document from file.] I thought it might be prudent to acquire some objective data prior to inviting you here.

HERZOG: [Returning document.] I wouldn’t describe this speculation about film and TV potential as "objective data."

WALDHEIM: [Producing several documents but withholding them from HERZOG.] These telegrams from Hollywood are not figments of my imagination. You can believe me when I tell you "The Kurt Waldheim Story" is being seriously considered as "a viable prime time project" by several major mass media entities.

HERZOG: If that’s the case this is getting too complicated for us to handle on a bilateral basis, Kurt. Matters of this nature should be discussed by our attorneys in a businesslike manner. [Begins to rise.]

WALDHEIM: [Pounding desk with documents in fist.] Goddammit, Herzog—I want a new contract signed, sealed and delivered before we leave this office! [Moderating tone and handing HERZOG contract taken from file.] I’m only asking you to be reasonable by accepting a situation that enriches us both.

HERZOG: [Reseating himself.] There’s no need to get on your high horse, Waldheim!

SECRETARY [Off.]: [Via office intercom.] It is 12 o’clock Mr Waldheim. All members of the General Assembly have convened for the changing of the Secretariatship ceremony and are awaiting your arrival.

WALDHEIM: [Into intercom.] Thank you.

HERZOG: Well?

WALDHEIM: Well what?

HERZOG: Are you going to keep the entire United Nations waiting until we settle our private differences?

WALDHEIM: It will do them good to be kept waiting. God knows how many times I have had to cool my heels because they couldn’t get their act together. Besides; a little delay should add a certain theatrical flare to my swan song, don’t you agree?

HERZOG: I have to hand it to you, Waldheim—you're one crafty sonofabitch—maneuvering me into this kind of a corner. Now I know how Chamberlain must have felt at Munich.

WALDHEIM: [Handing HERZOG pen.] Coming from you, Herzog, that is a compliment I will always cherish. In case you are interested, that pen is the one used to sign the Egyptian-Israeli cease fire in ’73.

HERZOG: That is a fact I will always Cherish. [Finished signing, hands contract to WALDHEIM, rises to leave.]

WALDHEIM: Where are you going?

HERZOG: Back to the office to blow my fucking brains out.

WALDHEIM: [Having slipped contract into file, rises.] Nonsense! [Takes HERZOG by arm and escorts him toward doors.] I’ve reserved a seat for you in the Austrian delegation. You don’t want to miss hearing Kurt Waldheim’s Last Hurrah in person, do you? [Pausing at doors.] There is just one more item before we call it a day, Henry.

HERZOG: What’s that?

WALDHEIM: Technically that pen is U.N. property. [Holds hand out to receive pen.]

HERZOG: In that case perhaps I should leave it on the desk for your successor—

WALDHEIM: [Snatching pen from HERZOG.] That won’t be necessary. In my experience, such technicalities are, by definition, meant to be ignored.

EXIT WALDHEIM and HERZOG. CURTAIN.

Scene 2

The livingroom/study of Carol Brownstone’s Manhattan apartment. WALDHEIM seated on sofa near desk reading manuscript of biographical chapter for his book. Luggage from Brownstone’s European trip is visible, some of it opened. BROWNSTONE is in adjoining bathroom. Toweling hair she puts head through doorway.

BROWNSTONE: Well, what do you think?

WALDHEIM: It’s marvelous—the atmospherics are tremendously vivid. You were right—your visiting Austria was essential to making this chapter live and breathe with the authenticity only an eyewitness can record.

BROWNSTONE: Austria is an unbelievably beautiful country. After spending a decade in this concrete jungle you must be itching to return there on a permanent basis. [Withdraws into bathroom.]

WALDHEIM: Yes. As soon as this chapter is delivered to Henry I will be on a jet headed back to that fairytale landscape you have describe so poetically—

BROWNSTONE emerges from bathroom wearing terrycloth robe, her hair looking wild and spiky from its recent toweling.

BROWNSTONE: I can’t honestly take any credit for the poetry, Kurt. Those pastoral passages really wrote themselves. You don’t think they’re too purple, do you?

WALDHEIM: No. Your playwriting skills have set the stage perfectly for the tragic drama that was to engulf Kurt Waldheim’s little storybook kingdom. It’s really amazing; the way you have recreated the dream world of my Austrian childhood. What you wrote is absolutely true—my entire youth was spent in the deceptively idyllic eye of a gathering storm that would sweep away a thousand years of European civilization. Your literary description of my psychological state in 1938 is quintessentially accurate.

BROWNSTONE: Once again Kurt, I must refuse to accept your praise. No playwright could possibly invent a more dramatic scenario for the apocalyptic manner in which your adolescent innocence was actually shattered. The transition from youth to adulthood is always a traumatic experience, but seldom is that personal "tragedy" played out against the cataclysmic background of an entire world undergoing its own disenchantment.

WALDHEIM: I must respectfully disagree, my dear. This modest "biographical sketch" you have authored is nothing less than a literary gem! In these few pages Miss Carol Brownstone has managed to crystallize the very essence of Kurt Waldheim’s reason for being! And, speaking of pages; there seem to be a few missing from this copy of your manuscript.

BROWNSTONE: Yes, I know—

WALDHEIM: [Showing her open manuscript.] There is a gap here—for the 1942-45 period.

BROWNSTONE: Yes—

WALDHEIM: Those were the years I was studying for my law degree.

BROWNSTONE: I know.

WALDHEIM: Admittedly those years are not the stuff from which legends can be made, but I think the story of my difficulties in writing a doctoral dissertation while eluding both the Gestapo and the Allied saturation bombing of Vienna is not without its relevance to the development of my character.

BROWNSTONE: I couldn’t agree with you more on that point. [Taking file folder from desk.] Those years from 1942-45 might be the most crucial in understanding your character. That’s why I didn’t want you to read what I’ve written about them until we could discuss some of the questions raised by the data I uncovered in researching these missing pages. [Hands WALDHEIM several pages from folder.]

WALDHEIM: There couldn’t have been very much "data" concerning that period of my life. As I told you, after my medical discharge from the Wehrmacht in ’42 I lived like a fugitive. As far as the Gestapo was concerned I was a fugitive! Somehow they could never get it through their thick German heads that my days as one of their soldiers were officially terminated by the shrapnel from a Soviet grenade I carried in my leg!

BROWNSTONE: The fact is: the Gestapo may have been justified in suspecting your civilian status.

WALDHEIM: Oh?

BROWNSTONE: [Handing him document from folder.] According to this photocopy of the medical records from the hospital where you recuperated from your leg wound, you were not discharged but "released for further active duty."

WALDHEIM: There must be some mistake. I’ve never seen this document before—I’m sure it’s not genuine; or if it is, I am not the Waldheim it refers to. [Returning document.] Waldheim is a rather common name in Austria. If you insist, I can send you a copy of my discharge from Vienna—

BROWNSTONE: The discharge isn’t the only problem, Kurt. When I visited your University I happened to meet a former law professor named Gruber—

WALDHEIM: Gruber? I don’t remember any professor by that name.

BROWNSTONE: He doesn’t remember you, either.

WALDHEIM: Why should that be surprising? The law school was a large institution—and we are talking about events that took place 40 years ago! If our paths actually did cross during those turbulent times it is no mystery that fact has not made much of an impression on our memories.

BROWNSTONE: No. But what is mysterious is the fact that the law school was shut down for the duration of the war in ‘43; except for the correspondence courses it offered to Austrian military personnel on active duty.

WALDHEIM: Well, if that is what Gruber told you, technically he is right. The law school did stop conducting formal classes on an official basis; but unofficially "informal" classes continued to meet throughout the war.

BROWNSTONE: Gruber confirms what you are saying. He describes that period as "the years the law school went underground."

WALDHEIM: So much for your "problem" with my law school days then!

BROWNSTONE: I’m afraid not. [Hands him another document.] This is a copy of the diploma you received in 1944.

WALDHEIM: Yes?

BROWNSTONE: If you will read the notation made on the reverse side—

WALDHEIM: [Reverses document.] It’s so faint I can scarcely—

BROWNSTONE: It states the original diploma was forwarded to you at a military address in Yugoslavia.

WALDHEIM: I’m sure that was part of the scheme—

BROWNSTONE: What scheme?

WALDHEIM: The university’s scheme for deceiving the Germans into thinking they were indeed functioning only on a correspondence basis.

BROWNSTONE: Then you were not in Yugoslavia in 1944?

WALDHEIM: I see what you’re driving at now, Miss Brownstone; but this Yugoslavia business has been thoroughly—and repeatedly—investigated and the result is always the same: my complete vindication.

BROWNSTONE: I am aware of that, Mr Waldheim. However, certain documents were made available to me in Zagreb that are not contained in the U.N. war crimes commission files—[Produces document from file.]

WALDHEIM: My, my—we are being meticulous, aren’t we? I don’t recall your itinerary for this project including a trip to Zagreb!

BROWNSTONE: My purpose in going to Europe was to find the truth.

WALDHEIM: That’s not quite accurate, Miss Brownstone. My purpose in sending you to Austria was that you might thereby add a certain degree of verisimilitude to your writing. I believe that technically there is a difference between truth and verisimilitude in your art form.

BROWNSTONE: This is no longer just an artistic exercise, Mr Waldheim.

WALDHEIM: No. It is a goddammed interrogation and I am not about to sit here while you browbeat me, young lady! [Rises from sofa.]

BROWNSTONE: I am only doing this for your own good, Mr Waldheim.

WALDHEIM: I fail to see how your muckraking will benefit me!

BROWNSTONE: Telling lies is one thing, but publishing them will give your enemies the perfect opportunity to crucify you on a cross of your own quotations.

WALDHEIM: [Having moved toward exit, stops in his tracks.] With a friend like you, Miss Brownstone, who needs enemies?

BROWNSTONE: Only a true friend would do you the favor of playing devil’s advocate in this most disagreeable matter.

WALDHEIM: So all of this is some kind of game for you, is that it?

BROWNSTONE: Yes. A war game. A dress rehearsal for the hostilities that will turn you into so much mass media mincemeat unless we deal honestly with all of the painful facts surrounding your military activities during the years 1942-45 now.

WALDHEIM: [Returning to sofa.] Maybe I have been too hasty in analyzing your motives as those of the WJC—

BROWNSTONE: But the World Jewish Congress is the devil whose point of view I intend to advocate—and the one you should be most eager to hear!

WALDHEIM: [Sitting, rubbing temples.] Alright, you’ve made your point. But you must concede I can’t be blamed for reacting emotionally to these incessant charges of my war criminality which have been dogging me for 35 years!

BROWNSTONE: That’s what makes writing this chapter of your book so crucial. By carefully constructing a worst case scenario now we can preempt the counterattacks your critics are bound to make if the whole truth is not told.

WALDHEIM: Of course. You’re absolutely right. It's standard legal strategy. When one of your witnesses is certain to be impeached, you elicit his damaging testimony on direct examination before your adversary can on his crossexamination. Well then—let us proceed with your "worst case scenario."

BROWNSTONE: The "medical discharge" story you have been telling since 1947 is not true, is it?

WALDHEIM: No.

BROWNSTONE: After you recovered from your leg wound you were in fact reassigned to active duty with Army Group E in the Balkans.

WALDHEIM: Yes.

BROWNSTONE: Your law degree was obtained by correspondence; and all of those accounts about "digging through the ruins of Vienna for research material" on your doctoral dissertation was pure fantasy.

WALDHEIM: Yes—although it should be pointed out that—no, you are quite correct. It was pure fantasy.

BROWNSTONE: And your duties with Army Group E consisted of what?

WALDHEIM: I was a translator. That was my principal function.

BROWNSTONE: Your principal function—but you had other responsibilities?

WALDHEIM: Nothing of any consequence that I can recall.

BROWNSTONE: Perhaps this will refresh your memory—[Handing him document from file.] As you can see it is a report you initialed on 11 August 1944; a report concerning "Activities by Partisans on Crete." There is nothing about that document which involves translation, is there?

WALDHEIM: This is an isolated scrap of paper—with a barely legible initial on it which, even if it is a "W," does not mean I ever saw it or knew of its existence.

BROWNSTONE: I now show you Exhibit B—a report dated 3 days after Exhibit A, detailing a "cleansing operation" on Crete in which 20 hostages were shot. You will notice the report is addressed to Group Ic/AO.

WALDHEIM: Yes.

BROWNSTONE: Can you explain the meaning of that designation?

WALDHEIM: It designates a small section of the Headquarter’s staff.

BROWNSTONE: And its purpose?

WALDHEIM: To perform certain—miscellaneous functions.

BROWNSTONE: Among which might be the gathering of intelligence?

WALDHEIM: Among other things—yes.

BROWNSTONE: By the way, do you happen to recall the name of the officer commanding Army Group E?

WALDHEIM: General Alexander Lohr.

BROWNSTONE: A fellow Austrian?

WALDHEIM: I believe so.

BROWNSTONE: Do you know what became of General Lohr after the war?

WALDHEIM: He was hanged as a war criminal. Is that supposed to establish my guilt by ethnic association?

BROWNSTONE: Not necessarily. It is merely another circumstantial fact—

WALDHEIM: Ah. Another piece in your puzzle!

BROWNSTONE: Exhibit C is a duty roster dated 1 December 1943 describing Lieutenant Waldheim’s responsibilities as including "the compilation of daily intelligence reports, monitoring prisoner interrogations and ‘special tasks’"—

WALDHEIM: Yes, that is what it says, but—

BROWNSTONE: The term "special tasks"—wasn’t that a euphemism for torture, executions and atrocities?

WALDHEIM: No. It was a "euphemism" for all the dirty little administrative jobs we junior officers were expected to do!

BROWNSTONE: At General Lohr’s trial he testified that "special tasks" was a code phrase for "activities not authorized in writing and of a manifestly illegal and/or immoral nature."

WALDHEIM: My activities in Army Group E were wholly non-operational. The gathering of intelligence is essentially a passive occupation.

BROWNSTONE: Which you pursued on a part time basis—isn’t that your testimony? Didn’t you just describe your primary job as being that of a translator?

WALDHEIM: "Primary," "part time"—these distinctions did not exist on the Balkan fringe of the Nazi Empire. There is only one fact that really matters in my military history, Miss Brownstone: at the end of the war Kurt Waldheim was still a lowly First Lieutenant!

BROWNSTONE: Exhibit D—

WALDHEIM: My God, what can I say or do to convince you I am not a war criminal?

BROWNSTONE: Exhibit D is a citation for a medal you received for "merit under enemy fire" during an antipartisan operation in the Kozara mountains in July, 1942.

WALDHEIM: As I remember—I went along on that mission as an observer. This medal you are talking about was strictly window dressing; a propaganda exercise. The Germans have a passion for handing out military decorations.

BROWNSTONE: How many men participated in the Kozara operation?

WALDHEIM: It was so long ago—

BROWNSTONE: More than two?

WALDHEIM: Yes, yes—of course there were more than two of us!

BROWNSTONE: Could it have been 2500?

WALDHEIM: That sounds like quite a lot; but if you already have the figure why prolong my agony?

BROWNSTONE: The correct figure is 2500. And out of that number only two received medals. Does that surprise you?

WALDHEIM: No. I see nothing significant in that fact—if it is a fact. Even if I did distinguish myself on the field of battle—which I didn’t—there is nothing I need to be ashamed of! It was a military operation! Those Yugoslav partisans were armed to the teeth! We weren’t murdering defenseless civilians in those mountains! For us it was a classic question of kill, or be killed!

BROWNSTONE: Since you have introduced the subject of defenseless civilians let me skip to Exhibit J—a letter stamped "Secret" and dated 28 April 1944. It’s addressed to Ic/AO and asks your unit to contact the SD.

WALDHEIM: Yes.

BROWNSTONE: The SD was the intelligence branch of the SS, was it not?

WALDHEIM: Yes.

BROWNSTONE: Exhibit J is requesting your unit to contact the SD concerning "arrangements for the deportation of 2,000 Jews from Corfu." Is that right?

WALDHEIM: You keep saying "your unit," but my name does not appear in this letter—nor does my signature, nor my initial; and I have absolutely no recollection of ever having seen it.

BROWNSTONE: What about Exhibit H?

WALDHEIM: This is a message dated 15 July 1944 with the heading "Deportation of the Jews From Rhodes and Crete." Once again we have a document which contains nothing to indicate I ever saw it!

BROWNSTONE: Are you disputing the fact that more than 50,000 Jews were deported from the area under Army Group E’s control?

WALDHEIM: That is a fact I only became aware of after the war.

BROWNSTONE: Like so many other Austrians.

WALDHEIM: Exactly!

BROWNSTONE: Really, Mr Waldheim—do you expect the world to believe that as General Lohr’s intelligence officer you were blissfully unaware of his systematic deportation of Greek Jews to German death camps?

WALDHEIM: That is a compound question which assumes more than one fact not in evidence. Moreover it is argumentative and calls for a speculation on my part—

BROWNSTONE: Those who read your book will not be bound by the rules of evidence you are invoking, Mr Waldheim! You can decline to answer me; but they will construe your refusal as an admission of guilt!

WALDHEIM: [After pause.] My "knowledge" of the deportations was based entirely on secondhand information. As for the "death camps" I had only heard rumors of the most speculative variety. If I am to be judged by postwar standards it must be admitted by you that the SS kept their Final Solution Policy a closely guarded secret.

BROWNSTONE: Nevertheless, by late 1944 you had heard rumors to the effect that massive liquidations were being carried out in Poland—

WALDHEIM: In late ’44 there were all sorts of "rumors," Miss Brownstone! Since when is a man criminally responsible for having heard rumors?

BROWNSTONE: I think that depends on what kind of rumors we’re talking about, Mr Waldheim! Rumors that 5 million people are being systematically exterminated may be an exception to the rule you are trying to establish!

WALDHEIM: If you have any hard evidence that I knew what was happening in Auschwitz, Treblinka and Sibibor now is the time to produce it!

BROWNSTONE: Do you recognize this? [Hands him document consisting of several pages.]

WALDHEIM: It looks like one of the antiNazi newsletters that were circulated throughout the Wehrmacht officer corps during the later stages of the war. As you must know, there was no love lost between the Prussian Old Guard and Hitler’s clique of amateur militarists. They especially resented the interference of the SS in what they considered to be their traditional prerogatives.

BROWNSTONE: So, their quarrel with Eichmann’s Einsatzkommandos was motivated more by jurisdictional jealousy than any compassion for the millions of innocent people who were being slaughtered.

WALDHEIM: That is probably a fair statement.

BROWNSTONE: Still, sentiments were expressed in these subversive publications that by cooperating with Eichmann in his deportation of Jews, the Wehrmacht was compromising itself on moral as well as institutional principles. Isn’t that true?

WALDHEIM: I suppose such an interpretation can be made—[Pause.]

BROWNSTONE: But?

WALDHEIM: I was only going to say that at some point in this discussion it might be helpful to talk about the preholocaust state of antiSemitism in Europe generally—and among Germany’s professional military class in particular.

BROWNSTONE: I agree. In fact I have some evidence you should examine on that subject. [Taking another file from desk she hands it to WALDHEIM.] So, perhaps this is a good time for us to take a short break while I make some coffee and you review the contents of this file.

WALDHEIM: How can I refuse such an eminently civilized suggestion?

CURTAIN closes slowly as BROWNSTONE EXITS to kitchen. WALDHEIM opens file and begins reading documents it contains.

End Act One

Act Two Return to Index

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