Do Not Forget This Small Honest Nation: Cardinal Mindszenty to 4 Us Presidents and State Secretaries 1956–1971 as Conserved in American Archives and Commented by American Diplomats

By Adam Somorjai and Tibor Zinner

Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty (18921975) was in 195671 "guest" of the American Embassy in Budapest, Hungary. During these 15 years he wrote a great number of letters and messages transmitted through diplomatic channels to four US Presidents and their Secretaries of State. There are only two Presidential answers: from Kennedy and from Nixon. In general, the Department of State instructed the Charg in Budapest to inform the Cardinal orally: his message has been received in the White House/State Department. This correspondence in his integrity remained buried in 5 archives.
This book is offered for all those willing to learn the various problems of Cold War and detente periode, American diplomacy and the thinking of the great cardinal, in his generation hero of freedom for the Hungarians and for the World.

*

From the letters of the Cardinal:

The Treaty of Versailles-"Trianon has dismembered us, and Yalta has created a Soviet satellite out of us." (October 23, 1957)
"The moral qualifications leave the sinful-livers and blood-wallowers cold." (November 8, 1957)
"Today nothing is more important (and perhaps it is not too late) for mankind, than that its leaders and the led should learn what bolshevism is in the way that we its poor, wretched satellites have experienced in body and soul. This great lesson can equal the Declaration of Independence in its effect." (June 23, 1960)
"This peace [i.e., the peace of Central Europe] has been the peace of the graveyard; only those who are not imprisoned can be satisfied with a jail." (August 10, 1961)
" illegality never can become legality, as the injustice justice." (March 13, 1964)

*
Rev. Adam Somorjai, OSB (b. 1952), a Hungarian Benedictine living in Rome (Italy) worked in various Church Offices, editor of the correspondence of Cardinal Mindszenty with the Popes and Cardinal Secretaries of State of the Vatican.

Prof. Tibor Zinner (b. 1948), legal historian, university professor in Budapest, Hungary's best-known expert on 20th-century political trials, author of numerous publications, e.g. on Imre Nagy and Lszl Rajk.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781479768615

Adam Somorjai

Rev. Adam Somorjai, OSB (b. 1952), a Hungarian Benedictine living in Rome (Italy) worked in various Church Offices, editor of the correspondence of Cardinal Mindszenty with the Popes and Cardinal Secretaries of State of the Vatican. Prof. Tibor Zinner (b. 1948), legal historian, university professor in Budapest, Hungarys best-known expert on 20th-century political trials, author of numerous publications, e.g. on Imre Nagy and Lszl Rajk.

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Copyright © 2013 by Adam Somorjai, OSB and Tibor Zinner .

Front cover designed by Mr. Ducki, Tomek.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Front: Photo of Cardinal Mindszenty, August 1957

NARA, State Department, Record Group 84, Budapest Embassy Files, Box Nr. 1. folder Nr. 4. Photo of Ms. Nóra Kiss

Original version / translation into Hungarian:

Szeizmográf a Szabadság téren. Mindszenty bíboros levelezése az USA elnökeivel és külügyminisztereivel, 1956–1971, (Hamvas Béla Kultúrakutató Intézet, Budapest 2010).

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

Abbreviations

Part I

The Defender Of Human Rights, 1956 To 1962

Part II

The Advocate Of The Truth: The Years 1963–66

Part III

Appealing To History’s Court Of Justice, 1967–1971

Epilogue

Chronology

Archival Files

Selected Bibliography

Biographies

Endnotes

To the People of the United States.

In memory of the Presidents

Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon,

their Secretaries of State

the Ministers, Chargés and both Ambassadors

of the U.S. Mission in Budapest

the Officers of the Hungarian Desk

the Directors and Officers of the Eastern European Office

in the Department of State,

all named and unnamed Foreign Service Officers especially in the Embassies in Budapest, Vienna and Rome,

thanking for generosity of the

National Catholic Welfare Conference

offered during the refuge:

5437 days

to Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty

Prince Primate of Hungary

Hero of Freedom for the Hungarian People

PREFACE

Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty’s name became a symbol of anticommunism. So earlier literature focused his interest on this aspect of his life and testimony.¹ Later on, he became famous because of his memoirs published in 1974.² During his long stay in the American legation³ in Budapest, the interest was maintained by various press publications; but the best sources to his mind were his writings, which were not known because they were closed in the diplomatic correspondence of American foreign service. The story of his leaving the embassy became known mostly from the memoirs of Ambassador Alfred Puhan.⁴ Newest Hungarian researches focused on his figure and went to American Archives to study his mind, as is presented in his numerous letters during his fifteen years of refuge.⁵

This book offers the correspondence with—or better, to—the presidents of the United States, in his stay in the embassy during altogether four presidents’ administration, the secretaries of state. We will see these letters are a kind of monologue because the answers are sporadic. American diplomacy was interested to learn his mind because it was interested about possibly leaving his refuge. On the other hand, the cardinal, on his own, wanted to give instructions of political interest—how to defend Hungary and Eastern Europe from Soviet Bolshevism. This aspect of his mind was not interesting for the Americans.

On the one hand, this is a very American story: a cardinal of the Catholic Church, for fifteen years in an American foreign mission, writes numerous letters to his hosts, the presidents, and at the same time gives political instructions to secretaries of state, sending these messages through diplomatic channels (dispatch or pouch service), which were read and commented by a couple of officers in the Department of State in Washington and/or in the White House. On the other hand, this is a very Hungarian story: the cardinal writes in his quality as a unique, free person in Hungary and even in Central Europe; but his view is very nationalistic, as American diplomats observe.

This book contains historical documents as they are. The editors wanted to give an aid to the readers; so in the case of the letters of Cardinal Mindszenty and official texts of American diplomats, if the original is English, quotation marks are suppressed, but bold type always indicates quotations. According to an American diplomat, Robert F. Illing, Mindszenty’s English was incredibly broken;⁶ but his texts here are not corrected, only commented, because they are sources. Hungarian names are given as they are used in original Hungarian language—family names first. The only exceptions are the names of both editors. Their family names are Somorjai and Zinner. Lines in italics are handwritten in the original.

Editors want to express their appreciation to the National Archives and the four presidential libraries for the conservation, custody, and administration of the Cardinal Mindszenty papers and for the free and fast access to them. A great special thanks to Dr. Balogh, Margit, Ms. Bognár, Szabina, Ms. Kiss, Nóra, Ms. Peres, Szilvia (Institute for Social Research of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest), and to two other persons for their valid collaboration in shooting the digital photos of the files during all ten trips in the American Archives.

This book is offered for all those willing to learn the various problems of the cold war and détente period, the American diplomacy, and the mind of the great cardinal, who in his generation was the hero of freedom for the Hungarians and for the world.

Rome-Budapest, Fall 2012

Rev. Adam Somorjai, OSB and Prof. Tibor Zinner

INTRODUCTION

The Hungarian Kingdom and the Constitutional Role of the Prince Primate

From about the year 1000 to February 1, 1946, the Hungarian form of government was a kingdom without a king. The age of the Christian kingdom lasting for almost a millennium started with King St. Stephen.*⁷ The Archbishopric of Esztergom goes back even beyond that since its existence was a precondition of the former. Kings as the representatives of national sovereignty were crowned and anointed by the highest ecclesiastical dignity of the country, i. e., the archbishop of Esztergom in those days, which went back to biblical antecedents. Consequently, the creation of an independent church was the prerequisite of an independent kingdom.⁸ The foundation of the Archbishopric of Esztergom was in such way an important step toward the sovereignty of the state. This erection took place about in the year 1001, so this was the first prelate, to be followed later in the eleventh century by the archbishop of Kalocsa, in 1802 by the archbishop of Eger, and in 1993 by the archbishop of Veszprém in the present territory of Hungary. Esztergom’s archbishop held the title of the primate from about the thirteenth to fourteenth century, and in the eighteenth century, the honorific title of prince primate.

During the Middle Ages, this archbishop of Esztergom and primate of Hungary had an important constitutional role as the person entitled to crown kings and an administrative role as the leader of the royal chancery, at least in the early centuries.⁹ It was from the national tradition that came the idea that the archbishop of Esztergom was the highest public official as primate in the absence of the king or the regent (prior to 1867, the palatine), which survived also in the twentieth century. (In the lifetime of Mindszenty, József*, the regent was Horthy, and Miklós* between 1920 and 1944.) The title of prince primate is something different. It actually follows a German pattern on the analogy of the German imperial pontiffs from the early eighteenth century as a hereditary title of the archbishops of Esztergom. It was officially abandoned by Lékai, László*, successor of Cardinal Mindszenty (apostolic administrator of Esztergom from February 5, 1974 until his appointment as archbishop in the years 1976–86); but the sources indicate that the latter stopped to used the title already from the spring or summer of 1964, signing his letters only as primate afterward.

It was during the office of Mindszenty, József that the Church of Hungary lost all its large estates as the last country to do so in Europe where the process, similar to Hungary, began with the rise of Protestantism, then continued during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. In Hungary, the Communists arriving with the Soviet troops distributed land already in the spring of 1945, putting an end to church estate as such. It has to be noted here that Mindszenty did not try to prevent this process and did not reclaim church lands in his address in November 3, 1956. However, harshly, he was attacked for doing so by the Communist media, distorting his words. He merely wanted to regain the institutions of the church, most of which were schools. As from 1948, the Hungarian schools were nationalized. Before that date, half of them had been in the hands of the Catholics and a quarter of them had belonged to the Protestants. Church lands had actually been trusts, serving the maintenance of these institutions. Mindszenty took his share of the events in the years 1945–48. While defending the interests of his church and its institutions, he found allies also among the Protestants, creating an ecumenism in Hungary. Many Protestants saw him as a guarantee of freedom as well. Also, the Hungarians of the neighboring countries became attached to him for he was the only one to protest against the deportation of Hungarians from Slovakia to Bohemia in the months after the Second World War and raised his voice also in defense of the German-speaking Hungarian population removed from Hungary and expelled to Germany. He was a champion of human rights who always took a stand for the oppressed.

LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT

Should the Russians kidnap me from the Budapest Legation of the United States of America, kill me or incapacitate me in any other way, I, Cardinal Mindszenty József, Archbishop of Esztergom and Prince Primate of Hungary, bequeath to my nation the following:

Be faithful to a free and independent Hungary and to the graves of the heroes of October and November.

Be reserved with the Russians and their servants with Hungarian names.

Retire to your family circles in these rough and bloody days and that circle should be chaste and evangelical.

In the meantime, the Hungarians should love their fellow Hungarians with compassion and they should not do harm to one another.

Stick to religion, for you have experienced how suprerior a religious person is as compared to an atheist. Catholics should fix their eyes toward Rome, the Holy Father, the Rock amindst the present landslide. Have childish trust in the ever helpful Patrona, the Queen of all Hungarians, who is Mother of God and has been our own mother, too, for the past thousand years.

I am writing late at night, amidst heavy gunfire, with my soul in agony, hearing screams of death of Hungarian women just being massacred by Russian soldiers.

As executors I name and invite His Holiness the Pope and the President of the United States of America as the most competent persons who will determine the time and way of the publication of this will.

I wrote this testament with my own hand and having read it out before the undersigned witnesses I signed it in their presence.

Budapest, at the Legation of the USA

November 6, 195610

The refuge lasted for fifteen years. Mindszenty’s secretary, Turchányi, Egon Albert* left the Legation after a few days to bring much needed serum for Hungarian hospitals from Vienna through the Charitas. He rode in the car of American journalist Leslie Balogh Bain* but following an identity check around Tatabánya he was arrested and put to prison.¹¹

The primary sources for these fifteen years at the Legation are the Cardinal’s Daily Notes¹² and the letters to be found at American archives on which the present volume is based. The relevant archival references can be found in the complete scholarly edition of Mindszenty’s correspondence with the political leaders of America¹³. The present volume is meant to give a documentary overview of the period.¹⁴

September 28, 1971 was the day when Cardinal Mindszenty left the, by then, American Embassy in the car of the Viennese nunciature for Vienna. He was received at the Airport by Mons. Casaroli*. He flew from there by a regular Alitalia plane to Rome where he was greeted by Cardinal State Secretary Jean-Marie Villot* and taken by car to the Torre S. Giovanni suite of the Vatican where he was received by Pope Paul VI* himself.¹⁵ The Cardinal spent hardly a month in Rome, then flew back to Vienna on October 23, 1971. This was the day when his complete and total exile, mentioned as such in his memoirs, began.

Cardinal Mindszenty József died on May 6, 1975 at the age of eighty-three, after he had come back from a trip to South America, following an operation. He was buried at Mariazell according to his will, and his mortal remains were transferred to Esztergom on May 4, 1991 and put to rest in the crypt of the basilica. The cause of his beatification is underway and reached its Roman phase in 1996. The first fruit of the Cardinal’s literary activity is the volume entitled The Mother that has been translated to several languages.¹⁶ He wrote a historical monograph about the great organizer Padányi Bíró, Márton*, bishop of Veszprém.¹⁷ His best known contribution is his memoirs that were published in Hungarian, in German, and in several other languages in October, 1974.¹⁸ The larger and still unpublished part of the memoirs is preserved in the archives of the Mindszenty Foundation in Budapest. Communist historiography¹⁹ has garbled the facts of Mindszenty’s life and his work for forty years, this is why his rehabilitation is so important. In fact, Prime Minister Nagy, Imre* gave it in writing on October 31, 1956 but the Kádár regime denied it from him, granting him merely an amnesty after his leaving the country. Mindszenty naturally did not accept Kádár’s amnesty. The reopening of his case was not followed by a retrial and when the annulment act came into effect, no personal legal rehabilitation could take place. On May 11, 1990 the court of justice established merely that the sentences of both the lower and the appeal courts were null and void as if no criminal procedure had been instituted against him at all. Temporal jurisdiction was thus unfair to Mindszenty as despite the overall legal settlement no amende honorable ever took place before the general public.

Most of Mindszenty’s conflicts derived from his legitimism. He remained a professed royalist till the end of his life, and maintained personal relations with certain members of the Habsburg dynasty like Queen Zita* and her son Otto von Habsburg*.

Cardinal Mindszenty at the American Legation

When around 8 o’clock in the morning, on November 4, 1956 the gate of the American Legation in Budapest closed behind the Prince Primate of Hungary nobody knew how much time the guest taking refuge there would spend in the building. As it turned out the period lasted 5.437 days, i.e., 14 years, ten months, and 24 days altogether, almost one fifth of the Cardinal’s lifetime.²⁰ In his memoirs he wrote the following: After my liberation [from prison] the worst nightmares at once vanished from my dream world. A free man ceases to have a convict’s dream; they seem to afflict only the prisoner. During my first nights in freedom I hardly dreamed at all. But in the following days of semi-imprisonment (from November 4, 1956 on), the events in Hungary filled my dreams once more with agonizing visions.²¹

The present volume offers the Reader the several of the surviving documents of this period from two angles, namely, from that of the Cardinal and from that of his hosts in Budapest and in the United States. There were biased opinions about him at both places both pro and against, on all levels of diplomacy from the Budapest Legation to the White House and the State Department. Some respected him, some held the unexpected guest an unwanted burden causing them much extra work to do both with his correspondence and otherwise. In the years 1956–71 the Cardinal, considering himself an outcast²², wrote entries into his Daily Notes and besides the correspondence from his exile with the American leaders, there are two more interesting and relevant groups of sources for the period, namely his correspondence with the Apostolic Holy See²³ and the documents of the responses of the Budapest politicians to the subject.²⁴ These documents reveal the reactions of these decisive forums to the Cardinal’s writings, who keenly followed the events and changes both in Hungary and the outside world, and drew conclusions from them.

Three major chronological units can be identified in his correspondence. The first one was that between 1956 and 1962, i.e., the era of the Kádárian reprisals and the nadir of American–Hungarian relations. The second one consisted of merely three years beginning with the year of the détente, 1963, when international tension was easing and lasting to February, 1966. Mindszenty had an undaunting opinion about détente as early as 1959 when he wrote on November 13 to the American president the following: "… but this certainly would have no results for either side, for the current softening and thaw did not come either for the good of my country or my course. Conseqently, in this period he advocated, above all, justice. Towards the end of the period he was visited by Cardinal Franz König* with whom he sent a letter to Pope Paul VI. The last period lasted from 1967 to 1971, ending with the termination of his semi-captivity. During the riotous year of 1967, he still did not leave his place of refuge not wanting to increase tension to the breaking point. Seeing, however, that attention was turned towards him worldwide once again, he concentrated to finishing his memoirs in order to secure his place in history". In his writings he appeals to posterity, as testified by his more crystallized ideas and ever longer letters. When he was about to leave the American Embassy, he looked forward to the period in the Vatican, the one in the gilded cage²⁵ that proved to be merely one month long, with mixed feeling, mostly with fear. In his Daily Notes he mentioned the possible transfer to the Vatican as a fourth captivity²⁶ as early as June 27, 1963. It is known that his leaving his Budapest refuge was finally made possible by a joint effort of the Holy See, Hungary, and the US and that despite his regained freedom of movement, his weeks in Rome and his subsequent years in Vienna were in fact not free from restrictions.²⁷

The documents in the book show a particularly one-sided correspondence. The Cardinal wrote countless letters to the US but received only two replies in a written form in return. One from John F. Kennedy* and one from Richard M. Nixon*. On December 29, 1948, Selden Chapin*, American Minister in Budapest suggested his State Secretary to recognize the Mindszenty as Symbol Nr. One of freedom and Christian valors.²⁸ This approach to the Cardinal almost sentenced to death was reflected later in Washington’s attitude to the man granted refuge after the fall of the Hungarian war of independence. At the same time, the fundamental and consistently followed policy of the United States was that the Prince Primate was not allowed to use the American Legation (later Embassy) as a basis for ecclesiastical and political activities from the very beginning. The American government considered his protection a moral obligation and wished to grant him refuge so long as his life and safety would be in imminent danger.²⁹ This is why the Cardinal was not allowed to pursue activities that could have provoked an aggressive response by Kádár, János* and his circle. This meant that from late November, 1956 he had no voice in the operation of the Roman Catholic Church in Hungary, he could not consult anyone and could not issue orders. His political activities were similarly barred. With hardly a few exeptions, the Americans did never deviate from this principle. Although the guest mostly received merely oral acknowledgements from the representatives of American foreign policy, the leaders of the Legation did comment on his writings in their reports and memoranda addressed to various presidents³⁰ and state secretaries³¹. The often improvised and overhasty summaries were always filtered through the thinking of their writers.

We have found at least twelve recurring subject matters in the Cardinal’s correspondence, all of which reflected his political and social sensibility despite his narrow scope of action and the doubtful accuracy of his sources he was not in the position to verify.³² He was first of all anxious about the fate of the persecuted and outraged by the unlawful trials serving reprisal by the Kádár regime. He consistently advocated human rights after November 4, 1956 just as he did before December 26, 1948. For example, as soon as he heard about the execution of Tóth Ilona and others on June 28, 1957, he wrote to State Secretary John Foster Dulles at once about the executions. When he took notice of the criminal trial againt dr. Turchányi, Egon Albert and the drastic measures against the youth at Újpest in late November, 1959, he offered to leave the Legation and give himself up just to save them as can be read in the letter to the US State Secretary about his intentions. He did not know that those young people had been killed months before. Mindszenty continued his nation’s fight for freedom by his peculiar means, i.e., by suggesting the Americans to act as he found the most appropriate. The succeeding generations cannot but admire his efforts even though they remained futile. It was not his fault that the Hungarian question did not turn out as he wanted.

Protesting against the détente or coexistence, against a temporary peace, Mindszenty advocated justice. Regarding the status quo his opinion was less unambiguous. In the international sphere, he did not agree with it since he considered the Soviet Union a colonizer, and not without reason. Although the data he asserted were often inaccurate as he could not help but to rely on press organs issued both at home and abroad publishing mostly – intentionally or unintentionally – inaccurate pieces of information, he advocated the cause not merely of Eastern Europe but also of the whole of Central Europe, i.e., all oppressed nations east of the Elbe. He spoke on behalf of over 100 million people. As regards his Church, however, he advocated the status quo, protesting against the disruption of King St. Stephen’s legacy and against the foundation of new, independent dioceses. He considered Trnava (Slovakia) a place under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Esztergom, though the case had been different since the autumn of 1945.³³ Furthermore, he laid claim to Burgenland as a primate, not taking into consideration that the territory had not belonged to his jurisdiction since 1922. Similar had been the case of Subotica (Yugoslavia) since 1945. From 1921 the Holy See considered, namely, the current territory of Hungary as being within the jurisdiction of the Primate instead of the territory of former Greater Hungary.

The dictated peace of Trianon and its consequences, the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947 included, were issues of outstanding importance in Mindszenty’s thinking and in his correspondence alike. It was in connection with the publication of his book on the situation in satellite Hungary that he wrote the following in his letter of February 5, 1960 to the US State Secretary: "for the writer34 the edition would bring the satisfaction that – as a historian by profession – he would have made this three years here profitable and have avoided the emaciation of aimlessness." So considering himself a ‘historian by profession’, Cardinal Mindszenty chastised all unjust measures against the Hungarians whenever he had the opportunity, and did his best to convince the American presidents and state secretaries about the unreasonable nature of the Versailles (Trianon) peace treaties following the First World War and, placing them into a wider historical context, he wished to win the politicians over to the cause of altering the defective peace treaties. However, he was not infallible in this question, either, just like in many other cases. For example, he gave incorrect data when writing about the Hungarians living in villages of the one-time Árva (Orava) and Szepes (Spis) counties, now ceded to Poland, since there had never been a compact Hungarian bloc there. The fate of Transylvania was an outstanding issue in connection with this problem as regards both the minority question and the great number of statistical data. It has to be noted here that Mindszenty often raised his voice on behalf of the fate of Transylvanian Bishop Márton, Áron*.

Mindszenty did not respect the national feelings of his hosts, or the fact that it was the US that granted him refuge. Besides earlier President Thomas W. Wilson*, he sharply criticized Franklin D. Roosevelt* and his successor, Harry S. Truman* as well for not having observed either the principles they advocated or the Atlantic Charter. As a contrast, he emphasized how important a role certain Hungarian officers had played in the American war of independence.

The Cardinal did not consider the time spent at the Legation as one of freedom. In a letter to the State Secretary he wrote on October 1, 1959 the following: "the Primate and two diocesan bishops [Badalik, Bertalan* and Dr. Pétery, József – the editors] are in custody, away from their dioceses."

Both before and after 1956, Mindszenty attributed great significance to the cause of the Holy Crown. For him, Kádár was no more than Ephialtes* (see his letters to State Secretary Rusk on February 6 and July 9, 1963 and three more times in letters to the President on March 13 and October 1, 1964, and May 17, 1967), and considered his regime illegitimate. His antipathy towards the leader of Hungary went back to the Christmas of 1948 when he was arrested and later sentenced to prison with Kádár functioning as Minister of the Interior. He harboured resentment against him also for the demolition of a church called Regnum Marianum in order to be replaced with a statue of Stalin*. He urged for the reconstuction of the church several times in vain.

A recurring issue in Mindszenty’s letters was the one of the tens of thousands of young people of both sexes (he eventually fixed their number at 35,000) allegedly taken by the Soviets to Siberia, for whom he prayed every day. And not only for those he believed were suffering far from Hungary but also for those at home who refused to give birth to a new generation of Hungarians owing to a drastic growth in the number of abortions. He called Kádár a modern Herod* for making it possible.

The present volume offers a mere selection of Mindszenty’s letters to the American presidents and state secretaries that might be called arbitrary. We do not analyze the content of the letters, either. We omit source criticism not because of failing conditions or courage and not because we intend to cover up the mistakes and inaccuracies of the man writing them and make him appear an infallible champion of human rights, leaving the objectionable issues in his letters and thinking or his problematic English making both understanding and translation often highly difficult out of consideration. And certainly not in order to influence in any way the cause of his beatification. We were motivated solely by the desire to show the Reader the Cardinal as a seismograph of his age, relying on his daily notes, his letters, and the diplomatic correspondence he generated. Although his memoirs, daily notes and most of the letters exchanged by diplomats about him and about the visits of Cardinal König, as well as countless relevant documents of the Apostolic Holy See have already been published, we wished to show the man, the still unknown three-dimensional character, the aging, frail person. The prelate, who was over 64 when he entered the American Legation in Budapest and over 79 when he left the building and Hungary. As one of the most famous representatives of the exiles, he was forced to leave his fatherland for the free world never to return alive. He did this despite the fact that in 1965 when he was offered treatment for his recurring tuberculosis he said he could not leave Hungary… he had overriding obligations to the Hungarian bishops, clergy and people as a Prelate and to the Hungarian Nation as its Primate.³⁵

ABBREVIATIONS

a.i. - ad interim - temporarily

AVO, ÁVO - State Security, the Hungarian KGB

BP - Budapest Mission Files (Legation Files, Embassy Files)

ca. - circa

COMECON - Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (1949–1991)

DCM - Deputy Chief of Mission

Dept - Department of State

Deptel - Department’s telegram

EE - Office of the Eastern European Affairs in the Department of State

EMBOFF - Embassy Officer

EMBTEL - Embassy’s telegram

EUR - Bureau of the European Affairs in the Department of State

FYI - For your information

GOVT - Government

GOH - Government of Hungary

HEH - Historia Ecclesiastica Hungarica (Foundation)

LEGTEL - Legation telegram

LIMDIS - Limited distribution

METEM - Magyar Egyháztörténeti Enciklopédia Munkaközösség / METEM - International Society for Encyclopedia of Church History in Hungary, Toronto

MP - Members of Parliament

NARA - National Archives and Records Administration

OM - Operations Memorandum

QTE - Quote - quotation begins

REFTEL - Referenced telegram

RG - Record Group

RPT - repeat

UNQTE - Unquote - quotation finishes

USG - US Government

In slashes Authors notes

PART I

THE DEFENDER OF HUMAN RIGHTS, 1956 TO 1962

1956

The first overseas message by Cardinal Mindszenty went to President Eisenhower. It was dated November 8 and was meant to express the Cardinal’s gratitude for the refuge granted to him at the American legation. The letter was taken to the United States by journalist Leslie Balogh Bain³⁶ and transmitted to the White House by John Hunt, editor-in-chief from the North-American Newspaper Alliance on November 11, 1956.

THE PRESIDENT

THE WHITE HOUSE

DEAR MR PRESIDENT:

THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE WAS GIVEN TO LESLIE BALOGH BAIN, NORTH AMERICAN NEWSPAPER ALLIANCE CORRESPONDENT IN BUDAPEST BY JOSEPH CARDINAL MINDSZENTY WHO ASKED THAT IT BE TRANSMITTED TO YOU. STOP. HEREWITH THE MESSAGE, AS TRANSMITTED BY MR. BAIN, WHO ESCAPED FROM HUNGARY ONLY TODAY. STOP. QUOTE AS A SHIPWRECK OF HUNGARIAN LIBERTY I HAVE BEEN TAKEN ABOARD BY YOUR GENEROSITY IN A REFUGE IN MY OWN COUNTRY AND AS A GUEST OF YOUR LEGATION. STOP. YOUR HOSPITALITY SURELY SAVED ME FROM IMMEDIATE DEATH. STOP. WITH DEEP GRATITUDE I AM SENDING MY HEARTFELT CONGRATULATION TO YOUR EXCELLENCY ON THE OCCASION OF YOUR REELECTION TO THE PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES, AN EXALTED OFFICE WHOSE GLORY IS THAT IT SERVES THE HIGHEST AMBITIONS OF MANKIND: GOD, CHARITY, WISDOM AND HUMAN HAPPINESS. STOP. LET YOUR ABUNDANCE IN THESE ENDEAVORS REFLECT A RAY OF HOPE ON OUR LONG SUFFERING PEOPLE WHO AT THIS MOMENT ARE UNDERGOING THE FIFTH DAY OF BOMBARDMENT, GUNFIRE, AND FLAMING DEATH IN TESTIMONY BEFORE GOD AND THE WORLD OF THEIR WILL TO BE FREE; WHOSE SONS ARE EVEN NOW BEING DRAGGED INTO SLAVERY, WHOSE CHILDREN WITH THEIR DYING BREATH ARE CRYING OUT FOR HELP FROM THEIR DESTROYED HOMES, SHELTERS AND HOSPITALS, WHOSE DAUGHTERS ARE FACING LOOTED STORES AND CERTAIN STARVATION.

GOD BLESS YOU, MR. PRESIDENT AND THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES. I AM ARDENTLY PRAYING TO OUR HEAVENLY FATHER TO SAVE AND LEAD YOU AND YOUR PEOPLE TOWARD YOUR COMMON AIMS OF BRINGING PEACE AND HAPPINESS TO THIS SORELY TRIED WORLD. MAY THE LORD GRANT YOU AND YOUR NATION GREATER STRENGTH AND RICHER LIFE. ON THE THRESHOLD OF AN EVER GREATER FUTURE, I BEG OF YOU, DO NOT FORGET, DO NOT FORGET, DO NOT FORGET THIS SMALL HONEST NATION WHO IS ENDURING TORTURE AND DEATH IN THE SERVICE OF HUMANITY. SIGNED JOSEPH CARDINAL MINDSZENTY, DATED BUDAPEST NOVEMBER EIGHT, 1956 UNQUOTE RESPECTFULLY, JOHN HUNT, EDITOR IN CHIEF NORTH AMERICAN NEWSPAPER ALLIANCE. (END MESSAGE).

The Office of the Eastern European Affairs prepared a draft White House message but as Robert M. McKisson’s* handwritten comment from November 13 reveals, the Pres[ident] decided to make no reference to the letter.

According to a memorandum of The White House, President Eisenhower November 15, 1956 – receiving Cardinals Mooney, Spellman* and MacIntyre – ...the President indicated clearly how he felt about the brutality visited on these people. The President spoke of Cardinal Mindszenty and the reason why the United States had not released his moving letter to the President – the reason being that had we released it, it could have been considered by the Russians as a political letter which would have placed the Cardinal’s right of sanctuary in jeopardy and perhaps subjected him to being taken into custody by the Russians.37

1957

In 1957, the Cardinal wrote eight letters to President Eisenhower (on the occassion of the New Year, on February 27, May 4, July 18, November 8, November 25, December 19, and December 27), and eight to Secretary of State Dulles* (April 26, June 6, June 28, September 24, October 7, October 15, October 23, and November 27).

The text of the Cardinal’s New Year’s message to the President is not found in the archival groups we consulted either as an original manuscript or in translation. Its existence is proved by a memorandum to the Secretary of State from the American Legation, signed by G[éza] A. K[atona]. On the occasion of the New Year, Cardinal Mindszenty has considered it appropriate to express his best wishes to the President in the form of the enclosed message in his own handwriting to which has been attached an English translation. Should no objection be perceived, the Department is requested to transmit the enclosure to this OM to the White House. Enclosures: Message from Cardinal Mindszenty, Translation.

The State Department forwarded the message to the White House without making a copy. According to the official records, the President saw the message and sent an oral reply. In his telegram of February 8 Secretary of State Dulles instructed the American Chargé d’Affaires in Budapest that the Legation should acknowledge in President’s behalf receipt Cardinal Mindszenty’s message transmitted under Legation OM January 16, express President’s thanks for Cardinal’s thoughtfulness and state President has asked Legation assure Cardinal of his deep and continuing interest in plight Hungarian people who have fought so bravely in cause of freedom. Legation should also call Cardinal’s attention to reference to Budapest in President’s second inaugural address. (FYI – No publicity being given to receipt of message or to President’s acknowledgement.)

DULLES

Katona’s* handwritten note on the Budapest copy informs us that the above message was senitized and translated orally to the Cardinal on February 10. This was to be the usual procedure for the years to come and the best way of preventing a direct correspondence between the Cardinal and the American presidents or secretaries of state. With a few exceptions an oral reply or merely an acknowledgement was all he could get.

The original text of the Cardinal’s letter of February 27, 1957, addressed to the President is the following:

Mr. President:

I wish to express to Your Excellency my deep thanks for your graciousness in presenting the Hungarian capital and the freedom-loving Hungarian people with such warmth to world opinion. From the point of view of my nation I also value that decision of high principle whereby the United States refrains, even at the cost of withdrawing its worthy minister, from recognizing the Kádár institution imposed on us by the Russians.

We see that attempts at helping us in our difficult situation are underway. But we fear these attempts will be too late.

Resistance continues. Rule by terror rages. The situation is indescribable. The 200,000 or 250,000 Hungarian intellectuals will be no problem to the Russians if they can function here for several more months.

Hungary in itself is small, but today it is the key to Central Europe with its 10,000,000 inhabitants. Hungary’s liberation and economic rehabilitation would ease every Central European endeavor. It would also be the most influential step toward European integration.

Every satellite state is watching to see how the West evaluates the Hungarian freedom fight and sacrifice. If this evaluaton shows itself in deeds, Central Europe will remain agog and will not rest until its liberation. Certainly Poland will be the first to move. But Czechoslovakia and Rumania, which at present are completely supine, will not remain behind. Yugoslavia will also make up its mind. If the evaluation of Hungary does not appear or appears too late, Central Europe will be disillusioned with the West and a hundred million people will have sunk into apathy between the East and the West.

I offer my unfortunate people to the further good will of Your Excellency.

Respectfully,

Joseph Card. Mindszenty [signed]

As Mindszenty’s letters were motivated by political intentions, from April, 1957 onwards the Americans restricted their responses to the oral acknowledgement of the receipt of his communications.

Here are some interesting points from McKisson’s reply:

(2) The question of resuming private interviews between the Cardinal and a local employee of the Legation for the purpose of briefing the Cardinal on events in Hungary during the period of his imprisonment: We have considered this matter and our tentative conclusion is that such interviews with local personnel should not be resumed. We feel that the less contact the locals have with the Cardinal for any purpose the better it will be for them, for the Cardinal, and for the Legation. If the briefings were not completed as of the time of Jim’s visit when they were suspended, we would have no objection to their completion by a Hungarian-speaking American member of the Legation staff (presumably either Nyerges or Katona) provided you feel that the time can be spared for this from regular duties. You will have an opportunity to discuss this matter further with Ed Freers* when he arrives in Budapest in a couple of weeks.

A final item: Some time ago we received an envelope addressed to Cardinal Mindszenty,… c/o US Legation, Budapest with the notation Please forward with Consulate mail. It bore no return address. We opened it and found a $20 bill and a short note signed Dave and Joseph. The address at the top of the note read merely St. Louis, Missouri without any street address. Since we could not return the money to the senders, we decided to forward it to you and to suggest that you incorporate it with other funds made available by American Catholics and now being used by the Legation for the Cardinal’s living expenses. The money is enclosed.38

The American hosts had to work out a protocol in dealing with the Cardinal and regulating his contacts with the outside world. They definitely dissociated themselves from his political conflicts with the Kádár regime, and took the position that they would offer him merely humanitarian help. Mindszenty, however, seems not to understand the nature of his position and speaks of asylum all through the fifteen years of his stay, while the Americans consider his state merely as a refuge.

An excellent example of the Cardinal’s mistaken beliefs about his status and possibilities is his letter of April 26, 1957 to Secretary of State Dulles, in reaction to an article from December 13, 1956 in the Journal de Genève. The Legation sympathized with the Cardinal this time since they believed the article attributed to the Vatican an incorrect opinion which reflected on him, though added that Mindszenty magnified the importance and impact of the article. It is interesting to note that the Cardinal often referred to himself in third person singular.

In its official White Book, the local puppet government maintains that the Hungarian freedom fight was a counter-revolution and that its chief perpetrator, according to the statements of Moscow, was the United States of America. According to the usual version, the internal leaders of the counter-revolution were: Imre Nagy, Prime Minister, and Cardinal Mindszenty, Prince Primate, who was already sentenced as an American spy and who is presently under the protection of the United States of America.

The mainstay and most serious supporting factor in the White Book has been an article in the December 13, 1956, issue of the Journal de Genève, according to which Cardinal Mindszenty has been branded in a two-pronged attack, as follows:

I. Criticism attributed to:

A. His Holiness, the Pope.

B. The Vatican.

II. Criticism based on these allegations:

A. Based on his November 3, 1956, radio speech:

1. He demanded the return of the Church’s possessions.

2. He pressed for the establishment of a Catholic Party.

3. He turned against the Nagy government.

4. He named the Nagy government as a sad heir to a forsaken system.

B. Other unfounded allegations:

5. He offered to resign.

6. But Pope Pius XII refused to accept the resignation.

7. Instead, the Pope instructed him to seek political asylum in the American Legation.

8. Kadar* tried in vain to gain his support.

9. His sole ambition was to write a book.

10. He sent important communications to the Vatican.

From my two radio speeches, which are the only public announcements made by me, it developed