108. Airgram From the Legation in Hungary to the Department of State1
SUBJECT
- United States-Hungarian Governmental Relations
The Hungarian Government makes Vietnam the most conspicuous issue in its relations with the United States at the moment. Like other East European Communist governments, the Kádár regime has conducted a strong campaign of denunciation against US policy in Southeast Asia ever since the Vietnamese crisis entered its present phase last February. The regime permitted a destructive attack on the American Legation by Asian students at that time and has subsequently called on the Hungarian people almost daily, through the press, radio, and mass meetings, to show their solidarity with the Vietnamese against the American “aggressors.” It has repeatedly pledged Hungarian “volunteers” to fight against the US in Vietnam in case of need.
The campaign casts a large cloud over the US-Hungarian official talks for normalization of relations that got under way last year. The tone and scope of the Hungarian official anti-US propaganda is hardly compatible with any initiatives from the Hungarian side on behalf of normalization. Foreign Ministry officials have, indeed, told us that Vietnam makes progress in our bilateral talks difficult. Hungarian cultural-exchange authorities have cited today’s East-West political situation to us as their reason for refusing to discuss plans for cultural reciprocity at this time. Thus the regime is keeping in line with Moscow in the “freeze” that the Soviets have applied to cultural and other relations with the United States, apropos of Vietnam.
The only positive event here during this entire period has been the US participation for the first time in the Budapest International Fair, last May—and this was an event to which the Hungarians had invited us long before the Vietnamese crisis arose. Moreover, the enthusiastic response of the Hungarian people to the American display there, at a moment when their government was trying to whip up popular condemnation of the US, must only have strengthened the regime’s prejudice against opening the doors to any substantial increase of American cultural influence.
But while Vietnam has been a factor in the current Hungarian “go slow” policy toward our bilateral relations, it appears to be more of an additional reason than an original one for this policy. The Kádár regime has, in fact, taken a cautious, slow approach to normalization from the start and has indicated a hard bargaining posture. Foreign Ministry officials from the outset of our talks have stressed the view that it is mainly up to the United States to make the political and trade concessions on which normal relations will depend. The Hungarians took a non-committal or negative position on official cultural exchanges initially as well as later, and the Foreign Ministry indicated its touchiness toward even the suggestion of a possible future USIA operation in Hungary. In other fields, the Ministry has never responded to US proposals regarding useful steps that might be taken toward improved relations, such as permitting a relatively small number of dual nationals to emigrate from [Page 310] Hungary to the US, and the abolition of arbitrary ceilings on our diplomatic missions. With regard to negotiation of US financial claims against Hungary, the Hungarian side by raising large counterclaims indicated that it was prepared to take a tough stand and to protract the bargaining process for years, if need be, in order to obtain favorable terms.
The official Hungarian attitude to date suggests that while the Kádár regime would like to obtain the prestige and other benefits of fully normal relations with the United States, it hopes to do so at the smallest possible cost. The regime is quite conscious of the avowed US interest in building “bridges” to Eastern Europe for the purpose of exerting political leverage in this part of the world, and of the Administration’s plans for seeking East-West trade legislation for this purpose; and it will be watching carefully to see what the American side is prepared to offer. With regard to cultural and other relations, the Hungarian leadership is quite willing, in its desire for Western technical information, to take advantage of such opportunities as the Ford Foundation grants—currently enabling several dozen Hungarians to train in the United States—but is clearly not anxious to move into a program of official exchanges of a kind that would sharply increase the American presence in Hungary.
In view of these various considerations it seems likely that the Hungarian Government will continue to proceed very cautiously and cagily in its negotiations of “normalization” with the United States. It will doubtless continue to stall on any conspicuous normalization proposals as long as East-West tensions (and Moscow’s example) call for this, and will use Vietnam as an excuse for dragging its feet. The Hungarians are careful not to shut any doors, however, and to maintain correct, even friendly official relations at the personal level regardless of the current propaganda campaign against our “imperialism.” They will undoubtedly be ready to bargain with us more actively, though always shrewdly, for the advantages they seek, the moment any relaxation appears in East-West affairs.
Counselor of Legation
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL HUNG–US. Confidential. Drafted by Tims. Repeated to Belgrade, Bucharest, Prague, Sofia, Warsaw, Moscow, Munich, and Vienna.↩