General Unease

An old soldier won't fade away

When the West German defense ministry last month abruptly announced the early retirement of a four-star general who was one of NATO's two deputy commanders. Bonn buzzed with rumors about why the alliance's high command harbored a security risk. West German Defense Minister Manfred Woerner last week ended the speculation, but added to the uproar. He asserted in a terse televised announcement that General Guenter Kiessling, 58, was an active homosexual. In a letter to Kiessling's lawyer, which was not made public but was excerpted in some German newspapers, Woerner said that the general had been mixing with "criminal elements" at seedy gay bars in Cologne for at least a dozen years, a practice that left him open to blackmail. Evidence gathered in an investigation, said Woerner, gave the defense ministry no choice but to dismiss the general.

The allegation came as a surprise to colleagues who had followed Kiessling's career. He became the youngest general in the Bundeswehr in 1971, took command of an armored tank division in 1976, then moved to a high-level staff job at the defense ministry in Bonn. In 1982, after Kiessling became a deputy to U.S. Army General Bernard Rogers, the NATO Commander, his progress was halted. A personality clash with Rogers apparently encouraged Kiessling to take early retirement effective next April. In September, Kiessling cleaned out his office at NATO headquarters in Casteau. Belgium, and shortly before Christmas he was relieved of his command.

Kiessling. a bachelor, had stirred mild comment when, shortly after arriving at NATO, he indicated his intention to share a house with his male chauffeur. Nevertheless, the general has stoutly maintained that he is innocent of impropriety. "Never in my life have I had homosexual contacts of any kind." he said. In the wake of last week's charges, suspicion began to arise that the West German defense ministry may indeed have the wrong man. Both a Cologne newspaper and a radio station reported that patrons of two gay bars Kiessling was supposed to have frequented had never seen him before. In one bar, a man said that investigators had shown him a picture of a frequent customer who looked like Kiessling, but was in fact a civilian employee of the army. Some of the civilian investigating officials who cooperated with military-security officers in the probe now refuse to testify against the general again. Kiessling last week asked that official disciplinary procedures be brought against him by the military in order to clear his name. The defense ministry says that it is looking into the case further.