Word: waldheim
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Waldheim goes to Tehran and returns empty-handed...
...doctor of law, a career diplomat in the Austrian foreign service, staid, elegant Kurt Waldheim had never confronted such a scene. Several hundred maimed Iranians, all veterans of the rioting that toppled Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi a year ago, shook their crutches and artificial limbs at the United Nations Secretary-General as they swarmed around him at a former military officers' club in Tehran. "Waldheim, look at us," shouted one of the wounded demonstrators. "Give the Shah back to us!" One man plucked out his glass eye and shouted: "That's what the Shah did to me!" Another...
...Waldheim, his legendary diplomatic poise badly shaken, hugged the child for a few moments while the crippled demonstrators and Waldheim's armed Iranian bodyguards wept. Then he promised emotionally that he would press for a U.N. investigation of atrocities committed under the Shah. Vowed Waldheim: "I shall bring this message of suffering before the United Nations, before the world community. We will inquire into the violation of human rights by the previous regime. We shall certainly do whatever we can to ensure that this mutilation of human beings will never take place again...
...Waldheim's promise pleased his hosts. Said an aide to Iranian Foreign Minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh: "This is a significant step in the right direction; this is a cornerstone worth building on." For weeks the Iranian government has sought an international hearing for its grievances against the Shah and the U.S. But by week's end there was no sign that Waldheim had produced the slightest movement toward achieving the main purpose of his trip to Tehran: to start negotiations on the release of the 50 American hostages at the U.S. embassy. The Secretary-General was under instruction...
Indeed, shortly after Waldheim left Tehran, the hostages' situation turned more ominous. The militants at the U.S. embassy demanded that Ghotbzadeh hand over to them U.S. Chargé d'Affaires L. Bruce Laingen, who has been held by the government at the Foreign Ministry. In a letter to Ghotbzadeh, the students said that Laingen "must provide some explanations about documents of espionage discovered in the nest of spies." In addition, the students announced that if the hostages are tried, Vietnamese representatives will be invited to attend. They claimed that one of the hostages, Air Force Lieut. Colonel David...