In the circumstances this was a considerable achievement
Posted in General on 30. Sep, 2010
In the circumstances, this was a considerable achievement.In the course of his two terms of office, Klestil’s alienation from his own party became increasingly obvious, so much so that there was open antagonism between the Federal Chancellor Wolfgang Sch?l and Klestil when, in 2000, the latter had to swear in the newly formed coalition government with J?Haider’s right-wing Austrian Freedom Party. His wife, Edith, left him because of his relationship with a much younger woman, Margot L?er, a Foreign Ministry official, whom he subsequently married. He had campaigned for the presidency as a happily married man with his wife at his side and some members of his own party became his fiercest critics.He caused anxiety in 1996 when he was taken seriously ill, with pneumonia. His official visits abroad dropped from 13 in 1995, including one to the UK, to seven in 1996 and only four in 1997. He began his first six-year term in July of that year.Klestil was hit by controversy in January 1994 when his 37-year marriage ended in divorce. Klestil campaigned on the slogan “Macht braucht Kontrolle” (“Power needs checking”), in this case the power of the Social Democratic government, and was elected with 56.9 per cent of the votes on the second ballot. There followed another tour of duty, in 1969, to the United States as Consul-General in Los Angeles.Klestil returned to the Foreign Ministry in 1974 to take over responsibility for attracting international bodies to establish their headquarters in neutral Austria.
These included the OSCE Secretariat, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec). His success in this area led to his appointment as Austrian Ambassador to the United Nations in 1978. He left the UN in 1978 on his appointment as Austrian Ambassador to Washington, where he remained until 1987.He was then recalled to Vienna to head the Foreign Ministry and played a leading part in formulating Austrian foreign policy in relation to the European Union and the Soviet bloc, including encouraging peaceful change there. He had been successful under the early Austrian People’s Party (Conservative) governments and under the more recent Social Democratic governments.In 1992 Klestil was nominated by the Austrian People’s Party to run for Federal President, to succeed the controversial Kurt Waldheim, also a People’s Party nominee, who was boycotted by a number of countries because of his alleged wartime activities as an officer of the German army. In 1966 he was invited to work for the Austrian Chancellor Josef Klaus in Vienna. As a student of economics at the University for World Trade, in Vienna, where he was awarded a doctorate in 1957, he witnessed the events leading to the end of the four-power occupation in 1955.After working for the Austrian Chancellor (the head of government) Julius Raab from 1957 to 1959, Klestil was assigned to the Austrian delegation to the OECD in Paris until 1962. From there he was sent to Washington to head the economic liaison office of the Austrian Embassy.
He was to have ended his second term as President today, handing over to the Social Democrat Heinz Fischer, who was elected in April.Born in Vienna in 1932 into a working-class family – his father worked for the tramway – Klestil grew up in the turbulent 1930s and 1940s, seeing his country occupied first by the Nazis, in 1938, and then by the Allies in 1945. Thomas Klestil played a leading role in helping to formulate Austria’s foreign relations over several momentous decades both as a diplomat and then as President. Thomas Klestil, diplomat and politician: born Vienna 4 November 1932; Secretary to the Chancellor 1966-69; Consul-General, Los Angeles 1969-74; Ambassador to the UN 1978-82; Ambassador to Washington 1982-87; Secretary-General for Foreign Affairs 1987-92; President of Austria 1992-2004; married 1957 Edith Wielander (two sons, one daughter; marriage dissolved), 1998 Margot L?er; died Vienna 6 July 2004. The actor’s many West End roles included Mr Justice Tredwell in Beyond Reasonable Doubt at the Queen’s Theatre.A collector of fine wines, John Barron is remembered by friends for having a temperature-controlled cellar in which to keep them when he lived in south London in the 1960s.Anthony Hayward. in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976-79), adapted for television by David Nobbs from his own book The Death of Reginald Perrin (1975), brought Barron his greatest recognition. But, when the series was revived as The Legacy of Reginald Perrin (1996), 12 years after Leonard Rossiter’s death, the seven new episodes clearly lacked the spark of the originals, which was not surprising considering the central character was missing.After his appearances in the children’s fantasy series Plateau of Fear (1961), Barron had also been popular with younger audiences in similar programmes: Ace of Wands (1970) and Timeslip (1970-71). (Ernest Clark replaced him in the role in the middle of the run.)Later, Barron would play the vicar, drinking companion of the title character, in all three series of Potter (1979-80, 1983) and the Deacon – the US President’s fanatical national security adviser with a hot-line to God – in the zany, futuristic Whoops Apocalypse (1982), charting events leading up to the Third World War.The role of C.J.
But, instead of being consigned to an endless string of such character parts in television drama, he found a niche in comedy. He played the dour Dean, trying to keep the clergymen in order, in the “Comedy Playhouse” production The Bishop Rides Again (1966) and the resulting sitcom, All Gas and Gaiters (1967-71), set in and around the hallowed cathedral of St Ogg’s and among the first programmes to poke fun at the Church. He followed this by acting in rep at the Theatre Royal, Leicester.After wartime service in the Navy, Barron returned to Leicester, then moved to the Intimate Theatre, Palmers Green, whose production of Mountain Air (1948), broadcast live from the stage by the BBC, provided him with his television d?t. and his former colleagues when their jelly factory goes bust.Among Reggie Perrin’s pet hates was sitting on a mischievously placed whoopee cushion every time he went into C.J.’s office and his boss’s habit of being unable to accommodate people for meetings at times convenient to them. He made his stage d?t in The Barretts of Wimpole Street at Croydon Repertory Theatre (1938) and acted in a West End production of The Western Chamber (New Theatre, 1938), before working as an assistant stage manager with Bill Fraser’s company at the Connaught Theatre, Worthing, where he appeared in Goodbye Mr Chips.