Marc Flemming
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After getting a bruising from media in his adopted country, Arnold Schwarzenegger received a boost from the press of his native Austria, where reports said he helped break up a neo-Nazi rally.
Dual allegations of groping and Hitler-lauding have threatened to engulf the Republican actor's gubernatorial campaign days before the recall ballot, with women's groups and religious leaders Friday vowing an all-out effort to stop Schwarzenegger.
The Austrian newsmagazine NU reported Friday that Schwarzenegger and some companions disrupted a gathering of neo-Nazis in the city of Graz when he was 17.
NU quoted Alfred Gerstl, a former leader of the upper house of parliament, as saying the young Schwarzenegger — already muscular from bodybuilding — "hunted down the Nazis" gathered outside the office of a teaching institute run by an avowed anti-fascist.
The report comes after ABC News and The New York Times carried statements attributed to the action star in 1975, during the filming of the bodybuilding documentary "Pumping Iron." Schwarzenegger was said to have told an interviewer that he admired Hitler's rise to power and wished he could have experienced the thrill the Nazi leader must have had holding sway over huge audiences.
The news organizations said the remarks were contained in transcripts from a book proposal made by "Pumping Iron" director George Butler, who on Friday came to Schwarzenegger's defense.
Butler, in a statement issued by the Schwarzenegger campaign, said the book proposal was a private document he never intended for a wide audience and that remarks were taken out of context or inaccurately quoted.
"As I have made clear to The New York Times and ABC, statements by Schwarzenegger (taken from the "Pumping Iron" outtakes) were not in context and not even strictly accurate as it turns out from a closer reading of a copy of what (I believe) to be a transcript of the original, now found after many years," Butler said.
He added that he does not have the "Pumping Iron" outtakes, but said the transcripts show that earlier in the interview Schwarzenegger said that in Germany "they used power and authority but it was used in the wrong way."
Schwarzenegger on Friday reiterated Friday that he could not imagine saying anything positive about Hitler. The actor added that his father, a member of the Nazi party, never discussed what he did during World War II.
"There was a certain denial in my country. I have never heard my father talk about the war. Never ever," he said. "When I went to college here I learned much more about our history than when I was over there."
Schwarzenegger, who leads in polls among candidates to replace Gov. Gray Davis if he is recalled, also spoke of the growing number of women accusing him of sexual harassment in past years, saying he felt badly that they hadn't confronted him so he could have apologized.
Schwarzenegger acknowledged Thursday that he had treated some women badly.
In West Los Angeles, leaders of Jewish, black and Muslim community groups called a news conference Friday to denounce Schwarzenegger.
"There is a chance that a man who admires Adolf Hitler could be the next governor of California," said Scott Svonkin, Southern California chairman of the B'nai B'rith Center for Public Policy.
Jona Goldrich, who said he escaped from the Nazis at age 14, said an apology in this case wouldn't be adequate.
"There is no room for apology, to praise someone who killed 6 1/2 million Jews," said Goldrich, 76.
A coalition of women's groups, meanwhile, met at the Feminist Majority offices in Beverly Hills to unveil an anti-Schwarzenegger ad campaign and introduce a former TV network intern who said the gubernatorial candidate groped her when she showed him around a sound stage 25 years ago.
She was one of several women — including radio psychologist Dr. Joy Browne — to come forward Friday with new allegations Schwarzenegger groped or made inappropriate comments to them. Browne told "Inside Edition" that Schwarzenegger groped her ankles and knees during an interview in the 1970s.
The Los Angeles Times quoted six women on Thursday who said Schwarzenegger had groped or sexually harassed them during separate incidents between 1975 and 2000.
In a report for Saturday editions, the Times said three more women came forward Friday with allegations the actor grabbed or groped them. The actor's campaign denied two of the claims — alleged incidents on the set of the 1988 movie "Twins" — and would not comment on the third.
Including the women who went public with their stories Friday, 11 have said Schwarzenegger touched them without their consent and seven have allowed themselves to be identified.
"No one confronted me," Schwarzenegger said Friday. "If someone comes to me and says, `How dare you do this, how dare you say this,' I can apologize right then and there."
During a half-hour speech in Newport Beach on Friday, Schwarzenegger's wife Maria Shriver gave a spirited defense of her husband, brushing aside allegations of his misbehavior.
"I wouldn't be standing here if this man weren't an A-plus human being," said Shriver.
The television newswoman, on leave from her NBC job, called her husband courageous for facing the scrutiny head on.
"Arnold will come through it and we'll be fine," she told reporters. "I believe in him so strongly and I love him very much."
She considered the subject closed, she said. "I don't believe in gutter politics and I don't believe in gutter journalism."
Shriver, the niece of President John F. Kennedy, also made the case for Schwarzenegger as the candidate who should replace Gov. Gray Davis in Tuesday's recall election.
Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, the only prominent Democrat vying for Davis' job in the recall election, dismissed as "ridiculous and outrageous" rumors that Democrats were pressuring him to drop out.
He said he's received one phone call asking him to bail out, but gotten hundreds urging him to continue campaigning.
"People are saying, 'Cruz, stay in the race until the end,'" Bustamante said at a Mexican grocery store in San Jose.
Source: AP
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10-04-2003 06:07 PM
