The Chancellor Stumbles at the Hurdle

Though born a Jew in Vienna 62 years ago, throughout most of his life urbane Bruno Kreisky has sought to sunder all links to Judaism. At an early age he declared himself an agnostic. His wife is a Protestant, and he had his two children baptized as Protestants. He bristles when he is referred to as a Jew, preferring to be called "of Jewish origin."

Yet as a politician in race-and-religion-conscious Central Europe, Kreisky could hardly avoid being regarded as a Jew. During his successful campaign for Chancellor three years ago, the rightist People's Party printed anti-Kreisky posters urging the electorate to vote for a "genuine Austrian." Experts like University of Wisconsin Historian George L. Mosse, who contend that Austria remains "unreconstructedly anti-Semitic," wonder if Kreisky acceded to the terrorists' demands partly to prove how genuinely Austrian he is.

Whatever his motivation, Kreisky's action was the most controversial of a long political career that had previously been marked by such studied caution that it won him the reputation of being Austria's most astute politician. Despite his background as the son of a wealthy industrialist, Kreisky joined the socialist movement at age 15. After the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, he fled to Sweden. Thirteen years passed before he returned home. First as a diplomat and then as Foreign Minister (1959-66), Kreisky deftly helped steer Austria on the course of political neutrality.

Although his office is filled with ceremonial symbols of Austria's imperial past, Kreisky has been a most unregal Chancellor. He freely mingles with the public without a bodyguard, writes innumerable thank-you notes, and waits his turn in line for the ski lift when on vacation. He also hobnobs with Vienna's most brilliant intellectuals and artists. The ease with which he mixes with all strata of Austrians has made him his country's most popular postwar Chancellor, so much so that a Kreisky-souvenir industry has blossomed--complete with Kreisky piggy banks, T shirts and clothes hangers. A bestseller is a wall poster depicting the Chancellor in a superman costume leaping over all sorts of political hurdles.

His handling of the terrorists, however, is one hurdle he has not cleared. The unexpected criticism he has drawn from Austrian intellectuals and from abroad has made him unusually defensive. "No one can criticize my decision," he told TIME Correspondent Christopher Byron. "No one but I was in the situation and no one else had to live with the consequences. To permit the hostages to leave the country would have meant certain death, and I was willing to do everything to get them released."

He insists that "I would do it again if the identical situation arose." But his friends wonder. Under the week's pressures, Kreisky has lost his cool and become noticeably irritable. He is usually a deft performer at press conferences, but last week he blew up when a Dutch journalist asked him, "Are you a Jew?" The testy Chancellor flared back: "It's none of your business!"

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.