Waldheim in hospital after fall

Waldheim fell on ice in a ski resort on New Year's Day

INNSBRUCK, Austria -- Former Austrian president and United Nations chief Kurt Waldheim is in hospital after suffering a fall.

Austrian state radio said Waldheim, 83, fell and suffered a facial injury on New Year's Day at Going, a ski resort in the western Austrian province of Tyrol.

A doctor ordered his transfer by helicopter to Innsbruck's University Clinic, where spokesman Johannes Schweighofer confirmed that Waldheim was being treated.

Schweighofer told the Associated Press that Waldheim was in "good" condition.

Waldheim served for two five-year terms as secretary-general of the U.N. starting in 1971, but he failed in his bid for a third term.

After a turbulent campaign, Waldheim was elected president of Austria in 1986 despite revelations he had concealed his World War II service in the Balkans.

He served in a German army unit involved in the deportation of tens of thousands of Jews and in mass killings of civilians.

Throughout his six-year presidency, he was confronted with purported evidence that he was personally implicated in wartime atrocities, which he consistently denied.

In February 1988, a government-appointed international commission of historians investigating his wartime service said it found no proof that Waldheim himself committed war crimes.

But it said he had acted "in close proximity" to wartime atrocities and did not oppose them.