Controversy surrounds Ostrovsky because many of his revelations have not been sourced or otherwise confirmed, leading several critics to say that most of his work (including The Other Side of Deception) is fictional.
Ostrovsky's service in Mossad was confirmed when the Israeli government unsuccessfully attempted to stop publication of the book.
Allegations of Nazi war crimes
In view of the ongoing international controversy, the Austrian government decided to appoint an international committee of historians to examine Waldheim's life between 1938 and 1945. Their report found no evidence of any personal involvement in those crimes.
Although Waldheim had stated that he was unaware of any crimes taking place, the committee cited evidence that Waldheim must have known about war crimes.
In response to Waldheim's denial that he knew about war crimes, Simon Wiesenthal stated that Waldheim was stationed 5 miles (8.0 km) from Thessaloniki while, over the course of several weeks, the Jewish community, which formed one-third of the population there, was sent to Auschwitz:
I could only reply what the committee of historians likewise made clear in its report: "I cannot believe you."
Wiesenthal, whose conduct in the Waldheim affair was sharply criticized by the World Jewish Congress and others, and whose "adamant defense of Waldheim" and "public, personal attacks against the WJC investigators" "ultimately tarnished his prominent global reputation," stated the committee found no evidence that Waldheim took part in any war crimes but was guilty of lying about his military record.
The International Committee in February 1988 concluded that he could not stop what was going on in Yugoslavia and Greece even if he knew:
In favour of Waldheim is, that he only had very minor possibilities to act against the injustices happening. Actions against these, depending on which level the resistance occurred, were of very different importance.
For a young member of the staff, who did not have any military authority on the army group level, the practical possibilities for resistance were very limited and with a high probability would not have led to any actual results. Resistance would have been limited to a formal protest or on the refusal to serve any longer in the army, which would have seemed to be a courageous act, however would have not led to any practical achievement.
On 27 April 1987, the United States Department of Justice and the United States Department of State announced that evidence amassed in an investigation conducted by the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations (OSI) had established a prima facie case that Waldheim participated in Nazi-sponsored persecution during World War II and therefore that his entry into the United States was prohibited by federal statute.
This marked the first time that a head of state had been put on an immigration watch list.
The 232-page internal Department of Justice 9 April 1987 investigative report was released in 1994 by that agency, and it is available at the agency's website.
The report catalogues evidence that, the U.S. government concluded, proved that Waldheim had taken part in, among other actions: the transfer of civilian prisoners to the SS for exploitation as slave labor; the mass deportation of civilians including Jews from Greek islands and the town of Banja Luka, Yugoslavia to concentration and death camps; the utilization of anti-Semitic propaganda; the mistreatment and execution of Allied prisoners; and reprisal executions of hostages and other civilians.
Additional allegations of participation in Nazi crimes, with citations to captured Nazi documents and other records, were leveled in a 1993 book by Eli Rosenbaum, the former U.S. federal prosecutor who had directed the World Jewish Congress investigation that led to the New York Times' initial exposure of Waldheim's hidden Nazi-era past in 1986. The authors also cited evidence that the governments of the Soviet Union and
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