Father's past

Washington (AP) - The father of General John Shalikashvili, President Bill Clinton's nominee to command the US military, served in a Nazi Waffen SS unit, archive documents at Stanford University's Hoover Institution show. According to his own writings, Dimitri Shalikashvili appears to have collaborated with the Nazis almost from the start of the Second World War in the hope that Germany would defeat the Soviet Union and thus free his native Georgia from communist rule. A White House spokeswoman said the general's record 'stands on its own'.