Arnold, ¿el próximo Reagan?

Descrito como un hombre que se ha hecho a sí mismo, el famoso actor de gruesos músculos aspira a gobernar el estado de California. Este es el perfil de su vida y sus ambiciones

El Universal
Domingo 17 de agosto de 2003

Washington.- Entre bromas y veras, un diálogo en la película Demolition Man de Sylvester Stallone hablaba en 1992 del futuro político de Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"Pasaremos por la biblioteca presidencial Schwarzenegger", afirma el personaje actuado por Sandra Bullock, mientras un incrédulo Sylvester Stallone, que representa un policía conservado criogénicamente durante 30 años, escucha con incredulidad.

"Es la enmienda constitucional 61", explica Bullock, al hablar de una hipotética reforma constitucional que permitiría a los estadounidenses naturalizados aspirar a la presidencia de Estados Unidos y que habría sido propiciada "por la enorme popularidad" de Schwarzenegger.

La "enmienda 61" es tan hipotética aún como la posibilidad de preservar criogénicamente a un ser humano y despertarlo sin daño, pero ilustra bien la aparente impresión que muchos tenían ya de las ambiciones del actor de origen austriaco, que a lo largo de su vida ha logrado virtualmente cada una de sus metas.

Considerado como ambicioso, Schwarzenegger es un hombre que se hizo a sí mismo.

Desde las incontables horas que pasó en el gimnasio para construir su físico, con ayuda de esteroides, según se afirma, a la disciplina con que invirtió sus ganancias, el empeño que puso en los ocho años de cortejar a su ahora esposa María Shriver, y el calculado paso para una carrera política largamente esperada.

"Soy implacable", dijo el actor en una entrevista. "Voy adelante hasta que obtengo lo que quiero, sea lo que sea", agregó."Es un arrogante. Un manipulador astuto y muy bueno para los juegos mentales... Hará lo que sea para ganar", comentó Lou Ferrigno, actor y fisicoculturista.

Tal vez esa fue la misma táctica que usó cuando luego de más de diez días de afirmar que no participaría en el plebiscito del 7 de octubre en California para destituir al actual gobernador, el demócrata Gray Davis, y elegir a uno nuevo, decidió anunciar por sorpresa su candidatura además en el mejor marco posible: el programa nacional de variedades "Esta noche con Jay Leno" que se origina en Los Ángeles.

Hasta el momento de su anuncio se decía que Schwazenegger apoyaría al alcalde de Los Ángeles, Richard Riordan, que según la prensa quedó "azorado" por la decisión del actor.

Y del otro lado, ha sido un activo participante en los juegos Especiales para personas discapacitadas auspiciados por su suegra, Eunice Kennedy-Shriver, y como parte de su actividad política hizo activamente campaña en favor de una proposición para que el estado de California dedicara 500 millones de dólares a promover actividades infantiles después de las horas de clases.

De acuerdo con sus biografías, la oficial y la extraoficial, Schwarzenegger decidió a los 15 años que quería ser estrella de cine, y para serlo se dedicó al fisicoculturismo, emigró a los 21 años, era un millonario a los 30, se casó con Maria Shriver, una "princesa" de la aristocracia liberal estadounidense, y ahora, a los 57 años de edad, paró de cabeza al establecimiento político de este país al presentarse como candidato a gobernador.

Su candidatura y afiliación con el Partido Republicano suscitó comparaciones con el ex presidente Ronald Reagan, otro actor y político ídolo de los conservadores, pero sus afirmaciones de que es liberal en temas sociales y conservador en lo económico no lo ha hecho muy popular con un sector de la derecha republicana que lo considera como un demócrata disfrazado.

La complejidad de Schwarzenegger en contraste con la simplicidad de sus personajes de película es realzada por los "esqueletos en su armario": según reportes de prensa, su padre estuvo afiliado al Partido Nazi; tiene amistad con Kurt Waldheim, el ex secretario General de las Naciones Unidas (ONU) y presidente austriaco que fue miembro del Partido Nazi; y ha enfrentado denuncias de prensa por hostigamiento sexual.

"Hay que hacer todo lo posible para ganar, sin importar qué", afirma Schwarzenegger en Pumping Iron (literalmente, levantamiento de pesas), una película documental hecha en 1975 al principio de su carrera, en la que casi al final se le ve en el acto de "darle un toque" a lo que se afirma es un cigarrillo de mariguana.

Tal vez por eso le pidió al ex gobernador de California, Pete Wilson, que fuera su jefe de campaña. Wilson, que se atribuye el "descubrimiento" de Schwarzenegger como político, fue uno de los impulsores de la "proposición 187" que prohibía dar servicios a los inmigrantes indocumentados y fue reelecto gracias en parte a una campaña considerada como antimexicana. Schwarzenegger votó en favor de la "proposición 187" y no se ha pronunciado ahora.

Schwarzenegger es ciertamente un hombre que se hizo a sí mismo. Lo demuestran la disciplina con que pasó hora tras hora en el gimnasio, hasta los esteroides que tomo al principio de su carrera para asegurar una musculatura impresionante.

De acuerdo con George Butler, productor y director del filme hecho en 1975, ya desde entonces tenía muy claro que deseaba llegar tan alto como pudiera.

"Realmente tenía un plan para hacerse millonario tan pronto fuera posible, llegar al tope del fisicoculturismo, conocer a los Kennedy, llegar a la Casa Blanca. Y nada de lo que ocurre en California sorprende siquiera remotamente a cualquiera de nosotros que hemos conocido a Arnold por un largo tiempo", comentó Butler en una entrevista televisada.

"No había expectativa de que un fisicoculturista austriaco que era republicano pudiera ser algo más que un visitante de fin de semana", relató Mark Shriver, hermano de Maria, para quien Arnold estaba fascinado más bien por sus padres, Sargent Shriver y Eunice Kennedy-Shriver.

Schwarzenegger es ahora amigo de la familia Bush, al margen de una colaboración honoraria con el padre, George H.W., es amigo del hijo y de hecho le prestó su avión para viajar a Florida durante la disputada elección de 2000. Asimismo, es amigo de importantes contribuyentes republicanos, como Kenneth Lay, que fuera presidente de la empresa Enron, cuyas fraudulentas maniobras llevaron a brutales cobros por electricidad a California y al final a una quiebra que costó miles de millones de dólares.

La misma película "Pumping Iron" es un ejemplo de la astucia política de Schwarzenegger.

En vez de tratar de prohibirla o embargarla y excitar la curiosidad de quienes supieran de ella, Schwarzenegger compró el filme y unas 80 horas de escenas no incluidas, y no tiene problemas con su exhibición.

Hay quien dice que entre las escenas ocultas hay algunas en las que aparece haciendo el saludo nazi, o con chistes racistas. Pero Butler afirmó que no hay nada de eso. "Todos creíamos que la iba a esconder", declaró al semanario Newsweek pero el año pasado permitió la exhibición de la película otra vez, para celebrar el 25 aniversario de su filmación.Y la escena en que parece darse un "toque" de mariguana sigue ahí.

El pasado nazi de su padre fue confrontado de otra manera igualmente capaz. Gustav Schwarzenegger fue el jefe de policía de un poblado austriaco y en algún momento después de la ocupación de su país por Alemania se unió al Partido Nazi. Newsweek relata que en 1990, cuando Arnold asumió la posición honoraria de "Zar de la educación física" en el gobierno del presidente George H.W. Bush, pidió al Centro Simon Wiesenthal, famoso por su cruzada para buscar ex nazis para ser juzgados, que investigara el papel de su padre.

El padre de Schwarzenegger, jefe de policía en el pequeño pueblo de Tal, era considerado como un amante de la disciplina que obligaba a sus hijos a competir entre sí, a hacer tareas hasta la perfección y a escribir semanalmente ensayos de diez páginas.

La relación entre Arnold y su padre no pareció ser del todo buena. Tanto que a la muerte de Gustav, en 1972, se excusó de asistir a los funerales porque estaba en proceso de entrenamiento para una competencia "y no me interesó", según relató en Pumping Iron. Años más tarde, en una entrevista con la revista Playboy en 1988, diría sin embargo que se debió a que estaba lesionado. "Me sentí mal porque sé lo mucho que hizo por mí", dijo esa vez.

En todo caso, a principios de agosto, la semana pasada, los investigadores del Centro Simon Wiesenthal, que a través de los años ha recibido más de un millón de dólares en donativos del actor, exoneraron a Gustav Schwarzenegger de participar en crímenes de guerra.

Posteriormente, sin embargo, el diario Los Angeles Times afirmó que Gustav Schwarzenegger había tenido un mayor papel que el indicado y lo colocan como miembro del clan Camisas Pardas, el grupo de choque del Partido Nazi que sin embargo ya para entonces era una fuerza secundaria en el gobierno de Adolfo Hitler. Según los documentos citados por el diario, Schwarzenegger participó en la invasión de Polonia, Francia y Rusia. En 1943 enfermó de malaria y dejó el ejército.

Según el historiador Michael Berenbaum, citado por el diario, Gustav Schwarzenegger "estuvo en lo más fuerte de las batallas durante los momentos más difíciles", cuando ocurrieron algunas de "las matanzas más horrorosas" militares y no militares.

La astucia del actor se revela también en su aceptación a no hacer grandes diálogos. Con un pesado acento alemán, la mejor fórmula de actuar es a base de diálogos limitados, y él lo hizo. Las más famosas citas de sus personajes son mínimas: desde la famosa "Regresaré" en el primer Terminator al "Hasta la vista, baby" del segundo.

Y en ese sentido el Terminator, el robot que se constituyó en el más popular de los personajes de Schwarzenegger, es también un poco su alter ego. Pero el éxito es sólo un lado de Schwarzenegger, que además de títulos de fisicoculturismo tiene también un título en negocios en la Universidad Superior de Wisconsin, en 1979. "Fui lo suficientemente listo para hacer dinero de mi fisicoculturismo para escribir libros que fueron mejor vendidos. Todo el dinero que hice lo invertí en propiedades. Yo diría que a fines de los setenta ya era millonario", aseguró.

Y ahora, un envejecido actor de películas de acción prepara su salida del cine para entrar en un nuevo campo para sus ambiciones...

MODELO AMRICANO

El actor Arnold Schwarzenegger nació el 30 de julio de 1947 en Graz, Austria.

Emigró a Estados Unidos en 1968. Obtuvo su ciudadanía en 1983.

Entre 1965 y 1980 ganó varios campeonatos como fisicoculturista, entre ellos el de Mr Universo.

En 1986 se casó con la periodista María Shriver, sobrina de John F. Kennedy. Tienen tres hijos.

En 1990 se convirtió en presidente del Consejo de Acondicionamiento Físico y Deportes de EU.

Entre sus principales películas están Terminator (1984) y Terminator 2 (1991).

http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/pls/impreso/noticia.html?id_nota=14963&tabla=primera

Schwarzenegger’s Next Goal on Dogged, Ambitious Path
By BERNARD WEINRAUB and CHARLIE LeDUFF

LOS ANGELES, Aug., 16 — Thirty-five years ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger, an unknown Austrian bodybuilder who spoke only a few words of English, had little money and no acting experience, came to the United States and soon made a prediction: He would become a movie star, make millions of dollars, marry a glamorous wife and wield political power.

As far-fetched as some of his aspirations might have seemed to some, all of Mr. Schwarzenegger's predictions have come true — except the last.
In stepping into the bizarre race to recall California's governor, Mr. Schwarzenegger, the 56-year-old former Mr. Universe, is seeking to fulfill what he called his "master plan" as he once sat talking with bodybuilder friends at an International House of Pancakes in Santa Monica. By all accounts, Mr. Schwarzenegger's drive to succeed was not merely an immigrant's classic up-by-the-bootstraps obsession. It was a calculated effort to turn himself into an invulnerable and powerful (physical and otherwise) figure. He was also a far cry from the skinny Austrian boy whose father, Gustav, a policeman and a one-time member of the Nazi Party, intimidated and sometimes beat, favoring his other son, Menhard, according to published accounts of Mr. Schwarzenegger's life. (Mr. Schwarzenegger did not attend the funeral of his father in 1972, or that of his brother, who died in a car crash in 1971.)

"What fascinated Arnold was money and power, and what money and power bestow on an individual," said George Butler, producer and director of "Pumping Iron," the 1976 documentary that became Mr. Schwarzenegger's first successful film.

"The past meant nothing to Arnold because it was over," Mr. Butler said. "He never looked over his shoulder. This is a man of bottomless ambition. It's always been there. Nothing's happened in the last few days that hasn't happened before. He sees himself as almost mystically sent to America."

Mr. Schwarzenegger has long-professed an interest in politics but his run for governor is coming as his movie career is ebbing. From 1982, with the release of "Conan the Barbarian," to 1991, when "Terminator 2: Judgment Day," was distributed, Mr. Schwarzenegger was one of the world's top stars.
But "Last Action Hero," 1992, was a costly flop that began a career slide for Mr. Schwarzenegger. As he grew older, Mr. Schwarzenegger performed in a series of comedies: "Twins" was successful but "Junior" and "Jingle All the Way" were not. More recently, his action films — "Collateral Damage," "The 6th Day" and "End of Days" — were box office disappointments. His current film, "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines," has taken in more than $145 million at the box office, but its high costs may not make it very profitable in the United States.

His insatiable appetite for success and his impeccable sense of timing have led him to this moment, says his best friend and former workout partner, Franco Columbu. "He knows how to leave the stage on top," Mr. Columbu said. "He's looking to invent something new."
As a public figure, Mr. Schwarzenegger has a recognizable name that gives him an enormous advantage over most of the 134 other candidates who have been certified to run in the Oct. 7 recall election to replace Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat.

But the scrutiny of Mr. Schwarzenegger has only begun. So far he has not clarified his positions on most public issues, including offshore oil drilling, the state's budget crisis and immigration.

On abortion, however, he has said that he is for women's right to choose. On business, he has said he would bring more of it to the state to generate more review. And as for his economic view, Mr. Schwarzenegger was quoted in The Sacramento Bee as saying, "I still believe in lower taxes — and the power of the free market."
Mr. Schwarzenegger is also facing nagging questions about his personal life as well as on the details of his finances.

A detailed profile in 2001 in Premiere Magazine accused Mr. Schwarzenegger of being a habitual womanizer, behaving crudely and cheating on his wife, Maria Shriver. Mr. Schwarzenegger dismissed the assertions as "trash."

The Los Angeles Times, in a recent investigation of his finances, estimated that his fortune far exceeded $200 million. This included real estate investments and a significant ownership in Dimensional Fund Advisors, a mutual fund company in Santa Monica that manages about $40 billion.

Mr. Schwarzenegger has climbed a social as well as political ladder. He used his early fame to get acquainted with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. When "Pumping Iron," was released, Mr. Schwarzenegger told the film's publicity agent, Bobby Zarem, that the one person he wanted to meet was Mrs, Onassis. Mr. Zarem spoke to a friend who worked for Mrs. Onassis. A luncheon meeting was arranged at Elaine's in New York to introduce the relatively unknown Mr. Schwarzenegger to Mrs. Onassis, Andy Warhol and others. A photograph of Mr. Schwarzenegger talking to Mrs. Onassis was widely distributed, and his celebrity grew.

"He took seriously his ability to charm and coax people and do exactly what he wanted," Mr. Zarem said. "He knew 25 years ago where he was going."
Mr. Butler, who still keeps in touch with Mr. Schwarzenegger, put it another way. "Arnold is one of the most political people I've ever met," Mr. Butler said. "Everything he does is political. He has an uncanny ability to go to a meeting, get into an elevator, sit down with people in a restaurant, and immediately assess their strengths and weakness. He manipulates."
Stress and Fantasy Growing Up

Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger was born on July 30, 1947, in Thal, Austria, near Grazi, and grew up there. His mother was a homemaker.
Wendy Leigh, author of an unauthorized biography of the actor, wrote this year in an Australian newspaper that the elder Mr. Schwarzenegger had a "brutal temper" and "gloried in pitting his two sons against each other." Arnold usually came out the loser in these boxing and running matches. Mr. Schwarzenegger has said that he was raised "under great discipline."
As a boy, Mr. Schwarzenegger found escape in the movie house and became a fan of Reg Park, a body builder who starred in B Hercules movies. Mr. Schwarzenegger would model his life after Mr. Park's. In his 1977 biography, "Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder," Mr. Schwarzenegger said that Mr. Park became his fantasy "father figure."
Mr. Schwarzenegger said his parents ridiculed him and called his dreams of building his body and becoming a movie star a lazy and nonsensical pursuit. "It was a very uptight feeling at home," Mr. Schwarzenegger said in "Pumping Iron." "I always felt I belonged in America."
Mr. Schwarzenegger's luck turned when he met Joe Weider, who had built a worldwide fitness empire and was the power behind the International Federation of Body Building, which sponsored contests like Mr. Universe and Mr. Olympia. Impressed with Mr. Schwarzenegger's charm and humor, convinced that Mr. Schwarzenegger was the kind of figure who could turn bodybuilding into a mainstream sport, Mr. Weider brought him to America in 1968.
"I knew, and he knew, that he could be great," Mr. Weider said. "We created Arnold. He was special because he was tall, he had willpower, charm and above all he wanted to win."
At 20, Mr. Schwarzenegger became the youngest man to win the Mr. Universe title, the sport's top amateur prize. (He went on to win four more Mr. Universe crowns). But initially he could not beat Sergio Oliva, for the professional title, Mr. Olympia. He finally dethroned Mr. Oliva in 1969 at a body building competition held at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Mr. Schwarzenegger's movie debut in 1970 was inauspicious. It was the now-forgotten "Hercules in New York" or sometimes called "Hercules Goes Bananas." For the movie, he was renamed Arnold Strong, and played opposite the diminutive actor, Arnold Stang.

Early Appeal of Republicans

Television stirred Mr. Schwarzenegger's interest in politics, and in particular, Republicans. Mr. Columbu said that he and Mr. Schwarzenegger began watching television news in the late 1960's and decided that Republicans were far more appealing than Democrats.
The Democrats, Mr. Columbu said, reminded them of the dreary socialism they had left behind in Europe. The Republicans, he said they felt, were about hard work, self-sufficiency and a muscular foreign policy.
"We were mad at Europe," said Mr. Columbu, who was born in Sardinia. "We were coming here because we thought America was better than Europe. We liked Nixon because he told Europe it had to pull its weight. Basically, Europe was old and you couldn't get anywhere there. America was the place."
In the early 1980's Mr. Columbu, now a chiropractor, invited one of his patients, Dana Rohrabacher, a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, to have dinner with the action hero.
"When I first met him, he talked about how much he loved America, how much he admired Reagan," said Mr. Rohrabacher, now a congressman from Huntington Beach. "I remember him saying, `Dana, some day I'm going to be governor of California and I'm going to call you.' I knew he was a guy going places."
Mr. Schwarzenegger's film stardom led him to meet top Republicans like Mr. Reagan, Vice President George Bush and Pete Wilson, then a senator from California and eventually the governor. Although he keeps a bust of Mr. Reagan in his office, Mr. Schwarzenegger grew especially close to Mr. Bush, admiring his pragmatism and world view and regular style of speech.
Mr. Schwarzenegger's campaign team for the run for governor consists of Mr. Wilson, a Republican whose support for rigid measures to combat illegal immigration contrasted with his moderate approach to abortion and other social issues, and some senior members of his old Sacramento crew, including Bob White, his longtime strategist.
Mr. Schwarzenegger has drawn other powerful and well-know figures to his cause. Warren Buffett, the billionaire financier and a friend of Mr. Schwarzenegger, came aboard as a financial consultant, and George P. Shultz, secretary of state under President Reagan and friend of Mr. Wilson from the Hoover Institute, is helping the campaign.
Also in the foreground is Mr. Schwarzenegger's wife, who is a network television journalist and a member of the Kennedy family, the paragons of Democratic Party politics. Ms. Shriver is said to provide the counterbalance to the Republican strategists. She was said to be displeased with the round of early television show appearances in which her sleepy-eyed husband kicked off his campaign the morning after announcing his intentions on "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno. As a consequence, Team Schwarzenegger was reshuffled.
"She's looking at it as his wife," said Sheri Annis, a former consultant to Mr. Schwarzenegger. "I don't think she's Hillary Clinton. She's looking to advance Arnold, not herself."
Mr. Schwarzenegger did not vote in the last two presidential elections, according to election records. And over the last 20 years he has given more money to Democrats than Republicans, albeit all of the Democrats are Kennedys.
Some Republican conservatives have held back in supporting Mr. Mr. Schwarzenegger's candidacy. On social policies, at least, Mr. Schwarzenegger seems to hold views that conflict with hard-cover conservatives in the party. His outlook can best be summed up in an interview he gave to The Sunday Telegraph magazine in November 1999 in which he admonished his party members to alter their approach.
The Republican Party, Mr. Schwarzenegger said, "is going to lose until you become a party of inclusion." He went on to say, "that you love the foreigner that comes in with no money, as much as a gay person, as a lesbian person, as anyone else — someone who is uneducated, someone who's from the inner-city."
Getting Into Power Clique

Mr. Schwarzenegger's thin political resumé includes a stint as chairman of the President's Council on Physical Fitness under the first President George Bush, and sponsor of last year's successful California ballot initiative Proposition 49, which channeled state money into after-school programs. It also introduced him into the Sacramento power clique.

Schwarzenegger’s Next Goal on Dogged, Ambitious Path
(Page 2 of 2)

He is involved in numerous charities, including the Special Olympics and the Inner-City Games.
Mr. Schwarzenegger has, in the past, admitted taking steroids to enhance his body building. In 1997, after Mr. Schwarzenegger had heart valve replacements, his doctor said that the damage was not caused by steroid use, but was rather a congenital defect.

Around 1990, at the time he was nominated by the first President Bush to lead the fitness council, and aware that he might seek a political future, Mr. Schwarzenegger went to the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles in an attempt to gage the political consequences of his father's past. He asked officials at the center to investigate his father's ties to the Nazi Party, during World War II.

"He said that for years his father served in World War II, and he wanted to know exactly what he did," recalled Rabbi Marvin Hier, the founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
Rabbi Hier said investigators found that Mr. Schwarzenegger's father had tried to join the Nazi Party in 1938, and was accepted for membership in 1941. He said that investigators found no evidence that the elder Mr. Schwarzenegger had committed war crimes.

"Arnold said, `What did it mean to be a member of the Nazi Party?' " Rabbi Hier recalled. "I explained, `Look, any son who finds that his father was a member of the Nazi Party is not something to be proud of.' "

Since then, Rabbi Hier said, Mr. Schwarzenegger and his wife have become very supportive of the Wiesenthal Center and its Museum of Tolerance. He said the couple had been the hosts of numerous fund-raising events at their home and had donated more than $1 million to the center.

"No other star has given that kind of money," Rabbi Hier. "He is a friend not only of the center but the state of Israel."

But Mr. Schwarzenegger and Ms. Shriver surprised their friends by inviting Kurt Waldheim, the former United Nations secretary general, to to their wedding in 1986. At the time, Mr. Waldheim, who was running for president of Austria, and was denying accusations that he had concealed knowledge of war crimes committed by his German Army unit in World War II.

Mr. Waldheim did not attend the wedding, but sent the couple an elaborate gift — life-size papier-mâché statues of themselves.

Ms. Leigh wrote in her unauthorized biography of Mr. Schwarzenegger that he startled guests at his wedding with his nuptial toast: "My friends don't want me to mention Kurt's name, because of all the recent Nazi stuff and the U.N. controversy, but I love him and Maria does, too, and so thank you, Kurt."
Mr. Schwarzenegger, who lives with Ms. Shriver and their four children in an estate in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles, is plainly confident that he will triumph in politics. Just as he has triumphed in body building and the movies. As he said in Pumping Iron: "I was always dreaming of very powerful people, dictators and things like that. I was just always impressed by people who could be remembered for hundreds of years."

www.jerez.com.mx
Arnold's Nazi Problem
Why won't he repudiate Kurt Waldheim?
By Timothy Noah
Posted Thursday, August 7, 2003, at 3:46 PM PT

A slight Waldheim problem

Here's a question Jay Leno forgot to ask Arnold Schwarzenegger when he announced his candidacy for governor of California on last night's Tonight Show: "Will you renounce your support for Kurt Waldheim?"

A little refresher course may be in order. Kurt Waldheim, a widely esteemed former secretary general of the United Nations, was running for president of Austria in March 1986 when it came to light that he had participated in Nazi atrocities during World War II. Waldheim had always maintained that he had served in the Wehrmacht only briefly and that after being wounded early in the war, he had returned to Vienna to attend law school. In fact, Waldheim had resumed military service after recuperating from his injury and had been an intelligence officer in Germany's Army Group E when it committed mass murder in the Kozara region of western Bosnia. (Waldheim's name appears on the Wehrmacht's "honor list" of those responsible for the atrocity.) In 1944, Waldheim had reviewed and approved a packet of anti-Semitic propaganda leaflets to be dropped behind Russian lines, one of which ended, "enough of the Jewish war, kill the Jews, come over." After the war, Waldheim was wanted for war crimes by the War Crimes Commission of the United Nations, the very organization he would later head. None of these revelations prevented Waldheim from winning the Austrian election, but after he became president, the U.S. Justice Department put Waldheim on its watch list denying entry to "any foreign national who assisted or otherwise participated in activities amounting to persecution during World War II." The international community largely shunned Waldheim, and he didn't run for re-election. (This information comes from the1992 book Betrayal: The Untold Story of the Kurt Waldheim Investigation and Cover-Up, by Eli M. Rosenbaum and William Hoffer.)

One month after these revelations began to splash across the front pages of newspapers worldwide, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver held their wedding reception* at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport, Mass. Schwarzenegger, a native of Austria, had invited Waldheim to the wedding, which of course can't be held against him because the invitations surely went out well before the war crimes story broke. (Schwarzenegger, who held dual citizenship in Austria and the United States, had also endorsed Waldheim.) Waldheim didn't attend, but he sent a gift—a statue of Arnold, in lederhosen, bearing off Maria, who wore a dirndl. Admiring it, Schwarzenegger offered a tribute that stunned the assemblage into shocked silence (this is reported in Arnold: An Unauthorized Biography, by Wendy Leigh):

My friends don't want me to mention Kurt's name, because of all the recent Nazi stuff and the U.N. controversy, but I love him and Maria does too, and so thank you, Kurt.

Schwarzenegger's name remained on Waldheim's campaign posters. After Waldheim was elected, Schwarzenegger paid him a visit and was photographed with him. According to the New York Post's "Page Six" gossip column, Schwarzenegger was seen sitting beside Waldheim as recently as 1998, when the two attended the second inauguration of Waldheim's successor as president, Thomas Klestil.

In 1988, Schwarzenegger was asked in a Playboy interview what he thought of Waldheim. He replied:

I hate to talk about it, because it's a no-win situation. Without going into details, I can say that being half-Austrian and half-American, I don't like the idea that these two countries that mean so much to me are in such a disagreement. Austria is a very important place for Americans, because it is a neutral country. With a little bit of good will, the problem will be straightened out. I think it's well on the way.

Why on Earth didn't Schwarzenegger take this opportunity to speak out against Waldheim? It surely isn't because Schwarzenegger himself had any Nazi sympathies (though during the filming of the documentary Pumping Iron, he reportedly once made a foolish comment praising Hitler). Rather, Schwarzenegger was likely playing politics—to be more specific, Austrian politics and family politics. For years it was rumored that if Schwarzenegger didn't run for governor of California, he would run for president of Austria. Because Austrians have long resented what they see as Waldheim's pointless scapegoating, any firm denunciation would have ruled the latter possibility out. In addition, Schwarzenegger's mother had for many years lived with Alfred Gerstl, a prominent Austrian politician who rose to the top post in the upper house of Austria's parliament. Schwarzenegger reportedly addressed him as "Uncle." (Schwarzenegger's father, who died three decades ago, was a police official who had belonged to the Nazi party.)

Rather than confront his Waldheim problem head-on, Schwarzenegger has proclaimed his disgust for Nazism, raised money for education about the Holocaust, traveled to Israel (where he met with then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin), and given generously to the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, which in 1997 bestowed on him its National Leadership Award. "He wants no truck with … Waldheim," the Wiesenthal Center's Rabbi Marvin Hier told the Jerusalem Post. "He probably did not have any clue as to the seriousness of the allegations against Waldheim at that time [i.e., 1986]. To suggest that Arnold's an anti-Semite is preposterous. He's done more to further the cause of Holocaust awareness than almost any other Hollywood star."

Clearly, though, that won't be enough. If Schwarzenegger doesn't renounce Waldheim in a highly public way, he can forget about ever becoming governor of California.

Correction, Aug. 11, 2003: An earlier version of this piece stated incorrectly that Schwarzenegger and Shriver "exchanged wedding vows" at the Kennedy compound. In fact, they exchanged vows at a nearby church, then held their wedding reception at the Kennedy compound, where the scene described above took place. (Return to the corrected sentence.)

http://politics.slate.msn.com/id/2086742/