Amnesty in Hungary?:
NELSON, WALTER HENRY
AMNESTY IN HUNGARY? So far it has been limited By Walter Henry Nelson THE COMMUNISTS have made a new bid to Western public opinion by releasing Anna Kethli, noted Hungarian Social Democratic...
...On their recent trip to Moscow, British Laborites Clement Attlee and Edith Summerskill made a personal appeal to Soviet Premier Malenkov...
...The free world has every reason to rejoice at the liberation of the great Hungarian democrat Anna Kethli...
...The recent release of Zoltan Horvath, former editor of the Social Democratic organ Nepszava and long a Communist collaborator, was not part of a general amnesty, as some observers have contended...
...Horvath was set free so that he can render further service to the regime...
...So long as the Budapest regime's "amnesty" applies chiefly to Nazis and Communists, however, and the bulk of Hungarian democratic leaders remain behind bars, it is misleading to speak of a relaxation of the Communist terrorism which has gripped Hungary since 1947...
...Gedye, The New Leader, June 4, 1951.] For four years, Western democratic and labor spokesmen have demanded Anna Kethli's release, and Radio Free Europe has joined in with broadcasts and leaflets...
...See "Hungary's Own Vogeler: Anna Kethli," by G.E.R...
...Apart from the Kethli case, the Budapest regime is following a policy of freeing only those prisoners whom it expects to find useful...
...The bitter memory of his wife's death, the result of a heart attack following the arrest of her entire family in 1950, is reportedly responsible for his refusal to cooperate with his former Red allies as the price of freedom...
...And Arpad Szakasits, who engineered the forced merger of the Hungarian Social Democratic and Communist parties and later served as President of Hungary under the Communists, is still in jail, despite reports of his release...
...WALTER HENRY NELSON works for the American Heritage Foundation...
...Following the release of Noel Field, the Budapest regime is also reported to be freeing a number of "Titoist" Communists who were jailed in 1949 after the trial of Laszlo Rajk...
...According to information reaching Hungarian exile leader Bela Fabian, the former Hungarian President and prewar leader of the Smallholders party, Zoltan Tildy, is still under house arrest...
...In fact, however, most leading Hungarian democrats and trade-unionists are still languishing in jail...
...One group of political prisoners with which the Government is now negotiating is the former members of the Nazi "Arrow Cross" organization, among whom the Communists evidently expect to find new collaborators...
...There is no doubt that the liberation of the 68-year-old woman was prompted by the continuing Communist effort to convince the West that there has been a "new look" behind the Iron Curtain since Stalin's death...
...One such Nazi reportedly being groomed for a new role is Ferenc Kis, former director of the Hungarian National Theater, who carried out the Gleichschaltung of Hungarian cultural life during the war...
...The Socialist International recently reminded Hungarian Prime Minister Imre Nagy of his amnesty pledges...
...So far it has been limited By Walter Henry Nelson THE COMMUNISTS have made a new bid to Western public opinion by releasing Anna Kethli, noted Hungarian Social Democratic leader who has been in prison since 1950...
...Szakasits was a victim of the 1950 purge of onetime Social Democrats...
Vol. 37 • December 1954 • No. 50
