with violent clashes between police and demonstrators. Sinowatz managed to calm both sides by calling a halt to the woodland clearing and announcing a "Christmas Peace" on 22 December 1984, following considerable pressure from the public. In spite of this, his period of office generally is not considered to have been successful. It was overshadowed by the 1985 diethylene glycol wine scandal, a construction scandal and bribery affair concerning the new Vienna General Hospital, and, in particular, the crisis of increasing debts of the nationalized industry, above all the VÖEST-Alpine steel conglomerate based in Linz. Close to the end of his period in office, Sinowatz also came under pressure after Defense Minister Friedhelm Frischenschlager of his coalition partner, the Freedom Party, officially received the former Sturmbannführer Walter Reder, a convicted war criminal who had been imprisoned in Italy since World War II, upon his return to Austria. Since Sinowatz' contemplative manner was not very typical of that of politicians, he often earned pitiful smiles, for example, for his 1983 government declaration quote Ich weiß schon, (...) das ist alles sehr kompliziert so wie diese Welt, in der wir leben und handeln... ("I know well, (...) that is all very complicated just like this world in which we live and act..."), usually rendered as Es ist alles sehr kompliziert ("Everything is very complicated"). Waldheim Affair During a meeting of the steering committee of the Burgenland SPÖ before the 1986 presidential election, according to a later rendering by board member Ottilie Matysek, Chancellor Sinowatz insinuated that one would have to point out to the Austrians that the candidate of the conservative Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), the former UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, had a "brown" (i.e. Nazi) past. By an indiscretion, this remark was passed on to the weekly magazine profil, which started to investigate the matter and triggered the Waldheim debate. During the presidential campaign, Sinowatz strongly opposed Waldheim. When Waldheim gave assurances that he had not been a member of the Sturmabteilung (SA) Equestrian Corps, but had only joined its members in riding occasionally, Sinowatz countered: "So we note that Kurt Waldheim never was a member of the SA, but only his horse." After Waldheim's election in the second round, Sinowatz resigned and passed on his post as chancellor to Finance Minister Franz Vranitzky, who also succeeded him as SPÖ chairman in 1988. At the same time, Sinowatz also resigned as