Antiquated Power Politics
MADARIAGA, SALVADOR DE
ANTIQUATED POWER POLITICS The world has witnessed of late a number of astounding events: Two of the three Western powers launched an operation disliked by the third and most powerful member of the...
...That is exactly what he did: rise at the head of his undefended people (President Eisenhower would call it populace...
...Their answer may be found by studying President Eisenhower's words and deeds, or lack thereof...
...where any such action was deprecated on the ground that it would spoil the atmosphere of coexistence...
...Why didn't he challenge the Soviet tank which would stand in his way...
...Why did he waste his time in Cairo on a mere sideshow, when the main issue was left unattended...
...When the Hungarian rising was but two or three days old, the patriots appealed to the UN for help through the British Prime Minister...
...Poor General Washington...
...The United States and Britain and France, from the point of view of foreign policy, are still in the 19th century...
...Hence their opposition to Russia's entry into the Middle East, and their passive looking on while she murders Hungary...
...The Hungarian people could not stand it any longer...
...Both of them had in mind the recovery of whatever diplomatic and financial advantages the ownership of the Canal Company and the physical control of the Canal implied for them...
...Such a reason is that which explains Suez as well as Hungary, and the distorted perspective that sees Suez as more important than Hungary...
...What authority had Kadar that the Gyor Committee did not possess...
...When Israel attacked Egypt, a Franco-British force was ready...
...Difficult questions...
...This sounded very much like a hint to the Soviet Union that Poland and Hungary are indeed in her preserve, but that the gamekeeper will shoot if the hunter rides this side of the Iron Curtain...
...but there remained on the pedestal, unmoved by its de-Stalinization, the tyrant's boots...
...He strengthened this statement by saying that the United States has never advocated "open rebellion by an undefended populace against force over which they could not possibly prevail...
...policy had never gone further than to urge that the spirit of freedom should be kept alive, that people should not lose hope...
...The backbone of these transfigurations was, however, the firm decision of Britain and France to seize hold of the Canal and expel Nasser from power...
...Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser took the Suez Company on July 26...
...Then the Soviet Union struck...
...Was there ever in history a more versatile force...
...Why did UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold ask Kadar's permission to enter Hungary...
...The liberation of Eastern Europe, the discarnate dream of our dim future, suddenly took on flesh and blood in Hungary, sprang into our startled present and, on the eve of victory, was crushed to death by Soviet tanks and American words...
...So we read that, on October 14, President Eisenhower explained during his press conference that U.S...
...Hence their talk about coexistence...
...Why didn't Hammarskjold look more closely into the matter, find that there was no government in Hungary and go there himself, right into the no-man's-land...
...There was an outcry that he had seized the Canal, though it had been in his hands ever since the British had evacuated Suez...
...Rumblings came from the usual "well-informed circles" in Washington to the effect that Berlin and Austria would be defended...
...Couldn't he have left the Suez episode to one of his lieutenants and kept his eye on the main event...
...When the Hungarians tore down the gigantic statue of Stalin which defiled their lovely capital, the whole immense body of the Soviet ruler fell to the ground...
...ANTIQUATED POWER POLITICS The world has witnessed of late a number of astounding events: Two of the three Western powers launched an operation disliked by the third and most powerful member of the triumvirate, and defied the all but unanimous United Nations vote against them...
...Then curious things began to happen...
...A government had to be set up which would see that Hungary ceased to be a Moscow satellite and became a neutral, free European country...
...Who was he...
...the French Government sought to eliminate a dangerous adversary in the rear of the Algerian line of danger...
...Those boots are on the move...
...The United Nations was only moderately angry...
...The British Government sought, moreover, to inflict a lesson on Nasser for his ungrateful and unmannerly response to Prime Minister Anthony Eden's generous dealings with him on the evacuation issue...
...The Franco-British action had been prepared to avenge the seizure of the Canal Company and to save Britain from an oil starvation which might occur some day in the future...
...Within 12 hours, they so effectively bombed the airfields of the invaded country that the invader was able to advance without having to perform that work himself...
...Lucky coincidence, the invader called it...
...The ruthless exploitation of the country's wealth and of the labor of its inhabitants, the unspeakable brutality and inhumanity of the Communist secret police, all the gamut of horrors well-known today that go with Soviet domination, had brought the Hungarian people to the wilderness of desperation beyond the boundaries of prudence...
...And yet he did prevail, though frowned at by President Eisenhower from the distant future...
...How could he prevail against the might of England...
...And so would Hungary have prevailed had the Western world acted in time...
...Who is Janos Kadar...
...Why, if President Eisenhower, on the second or third day of Hungary's revolt, had in the utmost secrecy intimated to Premier Nikolai A. Bulganin that Soviet military intervention in Hungary would be fraught with fearful dangers, is it not practically certain that Hungary would be free today, that the other satellites would be well on their way to liberation, and that untold possibilities would dawn for Russia herself...
...But then why does it stand fast (H-bomb or no H-bomb) if Berlin or Austria is attacked...
...The Imre Nagy Government was ousted by Soviet tanks, a puppet traitor was made Prime Minister and Stalin's boots were again forced upon Hungary's neck...
...If we Europeans do not destroy them, they will trample us under their bronze soles...
...are still playing an antiquated game of power politics in the H-bomb era...
...The Assembly accepted this claim and let him talk...
...it in fact assumed the form of a police force to separate two combatants, and it forestalled the actual seizure of the Middle East by Soviet tanks and airplanes...
...These bewildering events must be briefly catalogued before they are placed into the scheme of things...
...According to a diplomatic report in the British and French press, the appeal was "coolly" received "in London...
...but that in all these years it had never urged or argued for "any kind of armed revolt which would bring about disaster to our friends...
...Why has this not happened...
...From July 26 on, the British and French governments were determined to recover actual control of the Canal by force...
...The Western powers were, therefore, still hoping for a compromise on the basis of spheres of influence...
...It follows that they refuse to see, in the struggle with Moscow, what this really is—an absolute war that can only end with the ousting of the Communist party from power in Russia...
...Consequently, they prefer to deal with it as a power struggle with the Russian empire...
...Why didn't he ask the Gyor Committee instead...
...There is no Hungarian Government today...
...The first idea that comes to mind is "because the American Government feared a general war and the fright-fulness of the H-bomb...
...Meanwhile, the Hungarian nation rose against the Soviet exploiters and oppressors...
...Thus London and Paris decided to act jointly and energetically...
...There must be another reason...
...Within 24 hours, France and Britain presented an ultimatum to both sides enjoining them to separate their forces along a line that happened to be 100 miles behind the frontier of one of them...
...The debate on Hungary began with a speech by an unfortunate Hungarian who claimed to represent the Hungarian Government...
Vol. 40 • January 1957 • No. 1
