Word: chancellor
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...page document plunged Austria's fragile coalition government into crisis. Amid renewed calls for the President's resignation, the pro-Waldheim People's Party reportedly met with Chancellor Franz Vranitzky's Socialists to discuss how to get Waldheim to step down. Karl Gruber, a former Foreign Minister and longtime Waldheim friend, ignited a fire storm of criticism by charging that the six-member historians' panel was filled with Waldheim's "enemies." He said one member was a Socialist "and the others are of Jewish descent." Vranitzky immediately sent apologetic telegrams to the commission, and a People's Party official called...
...Waldheim, meanwhile, showed no sign of quitting. Bolstered by polls showing that most Austrians want him to stay in office, Waldheim privately threatened to dissolve the government -- one of his few real powers -- unless it rejected the document. The Socialists refused the demand, but Vice Chancellor Alois Mock, leader of the People's Party, charged that the panel had overstepped its mandate by passing moral judgments. The Cabinet finally issued a bland statement noting that Panel Chairman Hans-Rudolf Kurz, a Swiss military historian, acknowledged that his group had found "no personal guilty behavior nor participation in war crimes...
...Chancellor Franz Vranitzky said in a televised interview Sunday, which was praised even by conservative critics, that Waldheim "did not deal exactly with the truth" and must restore his credibility...
Vranitzky said he would consider resigning if the conflict over Waldheim continued to occupy time the government should devote to other matters. The Socialist chancellor leads a coalition with the conservative People's Party, which supported Waldheim's election campaign...
Alois Mock, deputy chancellor of Austria and head of the People's Party, reiterated his support for Waldheim but Economics Minister Robert Graf, another leading conservative, expressed impatience...