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STORIES | HOME Schwarzenegger: Secrets and Lies By DAN ACKMAN Everyone knows California is the place to go to reinvent yourself, and Arnold Schwarzenegger has done more reinventing than most. He has transformed from bodybuilder to Hollywood superstar to governor. But now that he is a politician on the national stage, should he be free not just to reinvent his present, but to fictionalize his past? That’s what he did in his speech to the Republican National Convention Tuesday night. After saying that the Democratic convention was full of lies, he told a few whoppers himself. First he told about his boyhood, saying “the Soviets occupied part of Austria. I saw their tanks in the streets. I saw communism with my own eyes.” But did he? First of all, the town where he grew up near Graz, Austria’s second largest city, which was in the British zone of occupation, not the Russian zone. It is, of course, entirely possible that, as Schwarzenegger says, that his father told him to fear Russian soldiers when they drove into the Russian zone. There was, after all, some reason for bad blood with the Russians as the Austrians had fought World War II on the side of the Nazis, a fact the governor omits from his tale of boyhood hardship, perhaps because his own father was in the party of Hitler. At any rate the occupation ended in 1955, when Schwarzenegger was 8 years old. Schwarzengger added his delight in coming to America, allowing his to escape the "socialism" of his homeland. In fact, by the time he was a teenager, Austria had returned to prosperity. In 1966, the nation elected a conservative government. Though in 1970, the people elected a socialist party to power, by that time, Schwarzenegger had already moved to the United States. In his speech, Schwarzenegger recalls his move to the United States: "I had empty pockets, but I was full dreams." He had also already been named "Mr. Universe," and had appeared on the cover of four magazines. To be sure bodybuilding was not the rage it would be—in no small part because of Schwarzenegger himself—but he was a star in his world. There was little money in the sport. But to imply as Schwarzenegger does that he was just another immigrant is disingenuous at best. He says he owes "everything I have" to the United. In fact, his body building titles were all international; and his stardom, while based in Hollywood, is international as well. Schwarzenegger is not the first politician to gild the lily about his personal history. He is not even the first governor of California to confuse his life with his movie roles. But to imply that he was oppressed under communism, that only America afforded him freedom and that he faced anything like a typical immigrant struggle takes the practice to the next level. Schwarzenegger is larger than life. Though governor of the largest state in the union, he remains cartoon-like. He quotes his own movie lines as if he was the character he plays. Maybe that's why the press gives him a pass, and not just in telling his life story. But when it comes to fictionalizing his biography, Arnold should terminate. September 3, 2004 |