Moscow Embassy Files
Memorandum of Conversation, by Mr. James C. H. Bonbright of the United States Delegation30
M. Szegedy Maszák, of the Hungarian Delegation, came to see me this afternoon at his request.
He began by saying that the Hungarians have received informal intimations from the Ukraine and Byelorussian Delegations that they should get in touch directly with Mr. Vyshinsky if they expect to obtain any settlement of their frontier problems with both Czechoslovakia and Rumania. He added that the Hungarians had been perfectly willing to enter into direct negotiations with the Czechs, as he understood we were inclined to favor, but he intimated that they were not particularly anxious to do so if that were to result—as seemed possible—in a further deadlock to be followed by a Russian mediation. He said that if we had any views which we would care to impart to them with regard to their going to Mr. Vyshinsky they would welcome them at the earliest possible moment since they had been holding off for several days. I assumed that unless we opposed it the Hungarians would take the hint although it was clear that they were not at all happy at the prospect.31
He informed me that they had just heard from Budapest that communist and socialist representatives would be shortly added to their Delegation. He did not know the real significance of this change of plan and suggested that it might imply dissatisfaction with the [Page 260] line taken by the Delegation up to now, or might be a further move to support the impulse toward Russian mediation. In this connection he was not at all certain that it might not mean some sort of arrangement might not have been already worked out in Budapest.
He stated further that the Hungarians were disturbed by the appointment of a Czech as rapporteur of the Hungarian Political and Territorial Commission and were speculating as to whether this meant that we were preparing to give up on the Hungarian Treaty. I explained to him that we had presented no slate of candidates for any of the commissions and that his Delegation would be entirely wrong if they thought there was any connection between our acceptance of the slates presented by others and our determination to defend the principles in the treaties which we believed in.
Finally he said that the Hungarians were wondering about our attitude on the Danubian question which he thought the Russians regarded as being of very great importance. I told him that we too attached great importance to this subject and assured him that as far as I personally was aware there was not the slightest inclination in any quarter to abandon the principles which we had enunciated in connection with this problem.