241. Despatch From the Legation in Hungary to the Department of State1
SUBJECT
- Comments on March 15 and Media Broadcasting
The passing of March 152 without a single shot being heard and with no demonstration of any kind reported calls for certain comments on Western radio’s role in similar future situations. The Legation does not know exactly what VOA, RFE, and BBC broadcast in regard to March 15. However, it has the impression that BBC attempted to give publicity to a stay-off-the-streets demonstration between 1400 and 1500 hours. RFE has been accused in the Hungarian press of having made constant references to MUK3 in recent broadcasts, but the Legation has not monitored RFE sufficiently to judge whether this accusation is true. VOA, as far as the Legation is aware, treated March 15 in a general, historical manner.
The Legation believes that the outcome of March 15 reveals, above all, the falsity of regime propaganda assertions that when the Hungarian people are moved to anti-regime demonstrations they are moved by Western propaganda, primarily the radio media. In light of the results, the Legation also believes it behooves the media to exercise the utmost modesty when appraising their ability to guide or maneuver the Hungarian people into a desired direction. Apropos this caution, the Legation recalls seeing a Time magazine article in which RFE [Page 592] seemed to credit its broadcasts with a major role in shaping the fifteen-point student demands of last October, which included such matters as free elections and a multi-party political system. It borders on the fantastic to assert that any outside source supplied these ideas, which are the general inheritance of the West and well-known in Hungary. The clear fact is that there was considerable internal strength for the realization of these ideas, which was probably encouraged by the support it received in Hungarian-language broadcasts from the West.
An amorphous internal will toward a March 15 demonstration was certainly present a number of weeks before the holiday. In face of the security build-up carried out by the Kadar regime and the Russians as March 15 approached, this would, had it persisted, have amounted to no more than dangerous willfulness. In any event the will was not present by zero hour, and it is most likely that even if the US media, presumably like the British, had publicized a silent demonstration, the results of March 15 would have been the same, namely: people would have gone about their normal business, shopping in stores, strolling with their children, sitting in parks, and working.
The gauging of the internal will of the Hungarian people to specific overt acts against the regime will probably become increasingly difficult. However, it is too much to expect that they will support a dangerous action which is openly announced weeks ahead of time. They will in all probability take it for what it may have been meant to be on March 15, a phase in a war of nerves. Even those more audacious elements of the population who, if encouraged, might have been susceptible to irrational behavior on March 15 will probably now be swayed toward a game of waiting, in which timing with international events will form an important impetus to action. If this analysis is correct, any attempt by Western radio to stimulate a maneuver will almost certainly end in fiasco. Without detracting one bit from the news-carrying value of the media, it can safely be said that what the United States is and does means far more to the Hungarians than what it says. Until such time as the West feels it possible to give actual help to the Hungarian people in their fight or to create a more fluid European situation, it will almost certainly be the better part of wisdom for the media to refrain from giving the Hungarians advice (even concealed advice) in specific conditions of danger. The media, like the Hungarian people, have to live with the hard fact that the Soviet-supported Kadar regime has succeeded in gaining more surface control of the situation in Hungary than most observers would have thought possible a month or two ago.
[Page 593]If the Department sees fit, it may wish to send processed copies of this despatch to MRC and PRU (2) Munich; to PAD and PRU Vienna; and to the United States Information Agency.
Chargé d’Affaires, a.i.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 511.644/3–1857. Secret. Drafted by Nyerges.↩
- The anniversary of the 1848 Hungarian Revolution. For text of a statement issued by President Eisenhower, see Department of State Bulletin, April 1, 1957, p. 538.↩
- According to Joint Weeka 6 from Budapest, February 8, the greeting MUK stood for the initials of the slogan “In March we start again.” (Department of State, Central Files, 764.00(W)/2–857)↩