Word: rner
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Ever since West German Defense Minister Manfred Wörner announced last month that General Günter Kiessling, 58, had been dismissed from the Bundeswehr because of charges of homosexual activity, the case against the four-star general had been crumbling away like stale cake. Initially, Wörner grandly asserted that Kiessling had been mixing with "criminal elements" at seedy gay bars in Cologne for more than a decade and that this had left him open to blackmail. Kiessling, a bachelor, stoutly denied that he was homosexual or that he had ever visited the bars in question. Gradually...
Then Wörner admitted that his decision to retire Kiessling had been influenced by "personal differences" between Kiessling, a Deputy Commander of NATO, and the organization's Supreme Commander, U.S. General Bernard Rogers. Desperate to bolster his case, Wörner invited to Bonn a Swiss homosexual actor who claimed to have evidence of misconduct by Kiessling. The "evidence" was unpersuasive. Moreover, the Defense Minister's methods of supporting his accusations seemed both unsavory and absurd. There were rumors that he would have to resign...
...dangerous embarrassment to Chancellor Helmut Kohl. He was already beset by an array of domestic political problems concerning; West German relations with the Soviet Union, the continuing deployment of U.S. missiles and the revival of his country's sputtering economy. He did not need the Kiessling-Wörner controversy, which one politician described as "worse than an operetta." Returning from an eight-day trip to the Middle East last week, Kohl sought to bring down the curtain by announcing that Wörner would stay on as Defense Minister and that Kiessling would be returned to active duty...
...West German defense ministry last month abruptly announced the early retirement of a four-star general who was one of NATO's two deputy commanders. Bonn buzzed with rumors about why the alliance's high command harbored a security risk. West German Defense Minister Manfred Wörner last week ended the speculation, but added to the uproar. He asserted in a terse televised announcement that General Günter Kiessling, 58, was an active homosexual. In a letter to Kiessling's lawyer, which was not made public but was excerpted in some German newspapers...
...Paul Nitze, 76, the chief U.S. negotiator in the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) talks with the Soviet Union in Geneva, dropped hints of his own that the Administration was edging away from the zero proposal. After Nitze met with Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Defense Minister Manfred Wōrner, a senior West German official said: "The word used most often by Nitze was flexibility, with balance spoken more softly afterward...