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Did OPRAH hear Arnold's Toast to Waldheim at their Wedding?

A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY

Did Oprah Winfrey hear the infamous toast that groom Arnold Schwarzenegger Kurt Waldheim, at the 1986 wedding of her old friend Maria Shriver?

When Oprah Winfrey had the couple on her show on Monday, she talked about how ugly the dress she (Oprah) wore to the wedding was. Oprah even showed a picture of herself at the wedding...I was wondering if she remembers hearing wedding Schwarzenegger's toast to Waldheim, who had just been accused of Nazi war crimes, too. She did not mention it. Maybe she forgot....

"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 and White Supremacy

* The Los Angles Times reported (Austrian Archives Reveal Nazi Military Role of Actor's Father- August 14, 2003), Arnold Schwarzenegger’s father Gustav had "a deeper involvement in Hitler's regime than the Simon Wiesenthal Center had uncovered in their investigation commissioned by the actor. A document found in Austria shows Gustav Schwarzenegger was indeed a member of the Sturmabteilungen (SA), also known as the "storm troopers" or "brown shirts." Gustav Schwarzenegger joined the SA on May 1, 1939, — about six months after the storm-troopers helped launch Kristallnacht, the Night of the Broken Glass, when Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues were attacked across Germany and Austria and thousands of Jews were hauled off to concentration camps. Gustav Schwarzenegger served with German Army units that saw some of the most brutal bloodshed of World War II, including the invasions of Poland and France and the German rampage through Russia and the siege of Leningrad.

* Arnold Schwarzenegger has a well-documented longtime friendship with Kurt Waldheim, whom he invited to his wedding in Massachusetts in 1986. At the time, Waldheim, a former United Nations secretary-general, was running a successful campaign that would see him elected to the Austrian presidency, while conveniently "forgetting" his own central role in Nazi atrocities.

Waldheim didn't attend the wedding, but Schwarzenegger offered a tribute that stunned the assemblage into shocked silence: "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." After the wedding, Schwarzenegger permitted Waldheim to use his name on campaign posters, protested a year later when Waldheim, then president of Austria, was banned from entering the United States, and was seen in Waldheim's company as recently as 1998.

* The Jerusalem Post reported that Arnold Schwarzenegger was photographed in 1996 with Jorg Haider, leader of Austria's extreme right-wing Freedom Party. Haider has praised Hitler's "sensible policies" and also been filmed at a secret SS reunion.

In 2000 Scottish Daily Record & Sunday Mail reported "Austria's right-wing strongman Jorg Haider has the grudging support of his fellow-countryman, muscleman Arnold Schwarzenegger, who praises him as "a very charismatic leader. "Some of his ideas are good," says Schwarzenegger, who is currently filming science-fiction thriller, The Seventh Day. But the action star, who takes an active interest in both Austrian and American politics, hastens to add: "There are some issues I have a problem with."

*Rick Wayne -- a black bodybuilder from St. Lucia, a Caribbean island -- said Schwarzenegger defended the apartheid system and argued that white South Africans could not turn power over to black South Africans without ruining the nation. "At the time, I just thought he was an out-and-out racist,'' Wayne said in a recent interview. Wayne said he watched Schwarzenegger upset Jewish friend Joe Weider to the point of tears with his crass jokes, which included doing an impression of Hitler.

* Robby Robinson, a former Mr. America, Mr. World and Mr. Universe titleholder, who worked with Schwarzenegger in the 1970s claims Schwarzenegger repeatedly directed the term "nigger" at him. Said Robinson, "That he would use, down with the blacks and 40 or 50 people, I'm the only black person in there and the head of the company, Weider, is there, all the officials are there. I mean everybody was in there. In walked this person he looks at me, down with the black this, Nigger, this, I am thinking, hold it. I'm not hearing this, I didn't think my brain was hearing this."

* Schwarzenegger, who claims to be a friend of immigrants, recently told reporters, "I love immigrants. You know, I'm an immigrant myself." But despite his statement of the obvious, it turns out that in 1994 he voted for California's proposition 187 -- the controversial ballot initiative that strove to cut health care and public education for undocumented immigrants. The measure was eventually ruled unconstitutional. The driving force behind Prop 187 -- former governor of California Pete Wilson -- is Schwarzenegger's campaign chairman. But Schwarzengger's close connection with the anti-immigrant legislation doesn't end with Wilson. Don Sipple, Arnie's new media consultant, created the harsh television commercials promoting the anti-immigrant initiative. The doomsday ads featured a grim narration voice warning viewers that illegal immigrants just "keep coming."

* The Washington Post reported Arnold Schwarzenegger also has a 15-year-long relationship to an English only organization called US ENGLISH with "ties to right-wing nationalist movements that have stirred controversy for other politicians such as Mississippi Republican Sen. Trent Lott." Further, "John Tanton (US ENGLISH co-founder), is considered the modern-day godfather of the anti-immigration movement. He has founded or helped fund at least 13 anti-immigration groups, three of which are listed as "hate groups" by the Southern Poverty Law Center." US ENGLISH spokesperson James Lubinskas, is a "contributing editor of the August 2003 issue of American Renaissance magazine, published by a leader of the white-supremacist group Council of Conservative Citizens, which is also listed by SPLC as a hate group. Lubinskas has long ties to right-wing nationalist groups, such as American Friends of the British Nationalist Party. Lubinskas has shared a stage with former Louisiana Klansman David Duke. Schwarzenegger is still a member of the US ENGLISH advisory board. Lubinskas "resigned" on August 19, 2003 just days after the Washington Post article was posted.

A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY

SOURCES:
Los Angeles Times-August 14, 2003
Washington Post on-line edition-August 13, 2003
Guardian UK-August 8, 2003
Jerusalem Post- January 5, 1997
Slate -August 7 & 15, 2003
San Francisco Chronicle- August 15, 2003
Mother Jones- August 13, 2003
Boston Globe –August 16, 2003
Christian Science Monitor -August 18, 2003
San Jose Mercury News-August 24, 2003
Scottish Daily Record & Sunday Mail Ltd.
Sunday Mail- Sunday, February 6, 2000
Democracy Now! Radio/TV show September 15, 2003
*Arnold: An Unauthorized Biography, by Wendy Leigh 1991
(At the time Leigh and her book got very little coverage in mainstream U.S. media. A 1992 Spy magazine article on the actor describes his publicity machine as a heavy-handed group that resorted to threats to keep Leigh's accusations from being widely repeated.)