Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, August 28, 1993                   TAG: 9308280159
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

NOMINEE'S DAD WAS SS OFFICER

According to his own writings, Dimitri Shalikashvili appears to have collaborated with the Nazis almost from the start of the war in hopes the Germans would defeat the Soviets and thus free his native Georgia from Communist rule.

It was not immediately clear whether the White House knew details of the late Shalikashvili's wartime service when his son was nominated this month to succeed Gen. Colin Powell as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"It was certainly known that his father served in the German army," an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Friday.

In any case, said White House spokeswoman Ricki Seidman, "his record stands on its own and his father's history is not relevant." Defense Secretary Les Aspin echoed that view, saying Shalikashvili's "superb record of achievement in the United States Army speaks for itself."

Several members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which must confirm Shalikashvili's nomination, reaffirmed their support for the four-star general who for the past year has served as commander of NATO.

"We don't think he should be judged on the basis of what his father did," agreed Rabbi Marvin Hier, director of the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center, which found the elder Shalikashvili's unpublished memoirs in the archives of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

But, Hier said, he was interested in investigating how Shalikashvili's father was able to enter the United States even though he had served in the notorious Waffen SS.

Word of the documents' contents was made public Friday by the newsletter Defense Daily.