U.S. Hid Weapons In Austria Vienna, Austria, Jan 21 (AP) -- Fearful of a Soviet takeover after World War II, the United States hid at least 79 weapons caches in Austria for anti-communist partisans. According to the newspaper Kurier, a U.S. congressional committee monitoring CIA activities found documents on the weapons caches that had not been known to the Clinton administration. A report Saturday in the Boston Globe prompted Hunt to inform the Austrian government, Kurier said. The Boston Globe report said CIA agents stashed the weapons while the U.S. military conducted loud military maneuvers. However, Fritz Molden, a former Austrian journalist, said Sunday that the secret weapons depots were established at the initiative of the Austrian government led by Chancellor Leopold Figl, and planning for them began in 1948. He claimed that some depots were also placed in the Soviet occupation zone in eastern Austria. Molden told the APA he had acted as a liaison between the Americans and the postwar Austrian government. However, it was not clear why the information was not handed down to subsequent governments. -- Austria demands details on secret US arms depots Vienna, Austria, Jan. 21 (Reuter) -- Austria's leadership Sunday demanded the United States supply details of 79 secret U.S. arsenals scattered across Austria. "The Americans should give us a plan indicating where the weapons depots are, how serious they have to be taken and what dangers they pose," Chancellor Franz Vranitzky said. Speaking on television Sunday, Vranitzky cautiously indicated the possibility of secret stockpiles from the other occupation forces -- France, Britain and the Soviet Union. "Approaching the other three occupation powers and asking them whether they too still have secret depots on Austrian soil will be dealt with in a very pragmatic and sensible way," Vranitzky said. The chancellery said the U.S. government was working on an exact list detailing the locations of the depots, and U.S. Ambassador Hunt promised to furnish details as quickly as possible. The television said experts assume each of the arsenals contained sufficient weapons and explosives for 150 anti-communist guerrillas and could also contain significant amounts of gold. Austrian television said that while the U.S. foreign ministry had assured Austria it would act as soon as possible, the CIA, which alone knows the exact locations of the arsenals, has remained silent on the issue. -- Postwar leaders acted with U.S. on arms caches Vienna, Austria, Jan. 22 (Reuter) - Austria's postwar leaders cooperated with the United States to stockpile arms around the country in a top-secret operation to safeguard against a Soviet attack, an ex-resistance fighter said Monday. Fritz Molden, who acted as a liaison officer between the resistance and the allied powers, said that if the Kremlin had discovered the plan to organize an anti-communist underground, Soviet troops would have immediately annexed eastern Austria. "It was all top secret. There were no archives, no papers made, no protocols written," Molden told Reuters. Molden said he was surprised that Austria's current political leaders were unaware of the arsenals. Details had appeared in two books, one of which he wrote 16 years ago. Austrian media speculated that the arsenals were part of a wider anti-communist strategy by the United States, which feared Soviet expansionism following the end of World War II. Newspapers cited the Gladio operation in Italy, set up as a secret Cold War resistance group in the 1950s to fight any Warsaw Pact invasion. Austrian experts estimated the depots held enough weapons and explosives for 150 anti-communist guerrillas and might also contain gold. They said likely sites included graveyards where digging would have gone unnoticed. Molden said arms were transported on U.S. trucks and trains into Vienna, which was surrounded by the Soviet eastern zone, and then secretly passed on to Austrians who risked their lives stashing the weapons away. He suspected most arsenals in western Austria were handed over to the Austrian army and gendarmerie after 1955 and that the arms sites in eastern Austria might now also be empty. --