Kurt Waldheim, former U.N. chief who hid his Nazi past, dies at 88 By Tracy Wilkinson, Times Staff Writer, tracy.wilkinson@latimes.com OBITUARIES, From the Los Angeles Times, June 15, 2007, Copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times Kurt Waldheim, the erudite diplomat who served as U.N. secretary-general and Austria's president but left the world stage a pariah after his Nazi past was exposed, died Thursday. He was 88. Austrian state media said Waldheim, who was hospitalized last month with a fever-causing infection, died of heart failure in Vienna.