page_title: Kurt Waldheim
section_title: United Nations Secretary-General
hierarchical_section_title: Kurt Waldheim / Diplomatic career / United Nations Secretary-General
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Dr. Kurt Waldheim (UNO ambassadeur Oostenrijk) voorgedragen als secretaris-generaal VN
context_page_description: Kurt Josef Waldheim was an Austrian politician and diplomat. Waldheim was the fourth Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1972 to 1981, and President of Austria from 1986 to 1992. While he was running for the latter office in the 1986 election, the revelation of his service in Greece and Yugoslavia, as an intelligence officer in Nazi Germany's Wehrmacht during World War II, raised international controversy.
context_section_description: After losing the presidential election, Waldheim ran for Secretary-General of the United Nations in the 1971 selection. Waldheim was supported by the Soviet Union and led the first two rounds of voting. However, he was opposed by China, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Waldheim won an accidental victory in the third round of voting when those three permanent members failed to coordinate their vetoes and all abstained. Waldheim succeeded U Thant as United Nations Secretary-General in 1972.
  As Secretary-General, Waldheim opened and addressed a number of major international conferences convened under United Nations auspices. These included the third session of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (Santiago, April 1972), the U.N. Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm, June 1972), the third UN Conference on the Law of the Sea (Caracas, June 1974), the Third World Population Conference (Bucharest, August 1974) and the World Food Conference (Rome, November 1974). However, his diplomatic efforts particularly in the Middle East were overshadowed by the diplomacy of then U.S. Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger.
  On 11 September 1972, Ugandan dictator Idi Amin sent a telegram to Waldheim, copies of which went to Yasser Arafat and Golda Meir. In the telegram, Amin "applauded the massacre of the Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich and said Germany was the most appropriate locale for this because it was where Hitler burned more than six million Jews." Amin also called "to expel Israel from the United Nations and to send all the Israelis to Britain, which bore the guilt for creating the Jewish state." Amidst international protest, "the UN spokesman said [in his daily press conference] it was not the secretary-general's practice to comment on telegrams sent him by heads of government. He added that the secretary-general condemned any form of racial discrimination and genocide."
  After Operation Entebbe on 7 July 1976 – in which Israeli commandos freed more than 100 Israeli and Jewish passengers held captive in Entebbe Airport (Uganda's main airport) by Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and German Revolutionary Cells fighters protected by forces of dictator Idi Amin, and where all the hijackers, three hostages, and 45 Ugandan soldiers were killed – Waldheim described the raid as a "serious violation of the national sovereignty of a United Nations member state".
  Waldheim ran for a second term in the 1976 UN Secretary-General selection. However, China was still opposed to Waldheim and approached several Third World countries seeking challengers. Outgoing Mexican President Luis Echeverría finally entered the race in October 1976, making Waldheim the only Secretary-General to face a contested re-selection campaign. Waldheim resoundingly defeated Echeverría in the first round of voting. China cast a single symbolic veto against Waldheim in the first round and voted for him in the second round, handing him an easy victory with 14 of 15 votes on the Security Council.
  Waldheim and then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter both recorded statements for the Voyager Golden Records, which were launched into deep space on the Voyager spacecraft in 1977. He was the first Secretary-General to visit North Korea, in 1979. In 1980, Waldheim flew to Iran in an attempt to negotiate the release of the American hostages held in Tehran, but Ayatollah Khomeini refused to see him. While in Tehran, it was announced that an attempt on Waldheim's life had been foiled. Near the end of his tenure as Secretary-General, Waldheim and British popular musician Paul McCartney organized a series of concerts for the People of Kampuchea to help Cambodia recover from the damage done by Pol Pot.
  Waldheim ran for an unprecedented third full term as Secretary-General in the 1981 selection. China was determined to unseat him this time and lined up a strong candidate in Salim Ahmed Salim of Tanzania. In the first round of voting, Waldheim lost to Salim by one vote. However, Salim was vetoed by the United States, while Waldheim was vetoed by China. The vet
caption: Waldheim c. 1971.
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