Slow-Motion Coup

The Jungfrau's peak gleamed in the distance; the River Aare rushed through Bern beneath the hotel window. The mild, wistful-eyed man who had tried to get along with everybody (including the Communists) had with him his timid little wife and his beautiful young daughter, Juliette. But Ferenc Nagy (pronounced Nodge) was uneasy: he was not enjoying his Swiss vacation from his duties as Premier of Hungary.

The phone rang. It was Matyas Rakosi, calling from Budapest. Rakosi was not a man whose voice made acquaintances homesick. Bullet-headed, shark-mouthed Rakosi, boss of Hungary's Communists, had a message for his nominal superior in the Government, Nagy.

"We will meet you at the frontier," rasped Rakosi. "You must place yourself at the disposal of the authorities to answer the people's court. Tell me at once where and when you will enter the country, lest anything should happen to you when you cross the frontier."

A Good Night's Sleep. Nagy hung up, thought a while and decided not to accept this sinister invitation. He called Budapest to see what terms he could make with the Communists. They told him they would let his four-year-old son, Laszlo, join him in exile. Nagy went around to the Hungarian legation and announced that he would resign as Premier as soon as Laszlo arrived. Then he went back to the hotel, disconnected his phone and went to bed. Said a fellow countryman: "I'll bet Nagy was the only Hungarian in Bern who slept that night."

This last act of the bitter farce of Hungarian postwar democracy had been predicted by Rakosi. When, in the free elections of January 1946, Nagy's Smallholders' Party had got 59% of the votes against only 17% for the Communists, Rakosi had growled: "The story has just begun . . . watch what happens later."

What happened was a series of arrests of Smallholder leaders. Communists and their close allies grabbed 64% of the top Government jobs, including the Ministry of Interior with the police and the all-powerful Political Section. As the Red army of occupation (around 100,000) prepared to move out, the Communists turned the heat on even hotter. They wanted to be sure they would not lose the next election, scheduled for September.

No. 60 Andrassy Ut. Five months ago the Communists discovered a "dangerous plot" involving "highly placed persons." They arrested Bela Kovacs, personal friend of Nagy and secretary-general of his party, and 20 inner-circle members of the Government. Communist Police Chief Peter Gabor, at No. 60 Andrassy Ut (the Ministry of the Interior's political prison), was long a member of the Soviet secret police in Moscow; he knew how to get "confessions." What went on in "No. 60" was revealed in a smuggled letter from one prisoner. "The interrogation was a nightmare," he wrote. "I was allowed to lie down only six hours in two weeks. ... I stood for 20 hours continuously."

The U.S. Government, which is nominally one of the occupying powers, protested Kovacs' arrest. Nagy, who still thought he could appease the Reds, said: "If we publish the [U.S.] note, it would be considered unfriendly to the Soviet Union." Once when Nagy dared to speak up at a Cabinet meeting, Rakosi bore down on him: "Oh, so you've been stiffened by the American note, have you?" Nagy wilted. "Not at all, not at all," he said.

The Inside of a Melon. Two weeks ago, warned that his brave friend Kovacs was nearing the breaking point, Nagy left for Switzerland. One day last week Rakosi, wearing a smart double-breasted blue suit (standard uniform for Communist leaders nowadays), called an emergency meeting of the Cabinet. In the ornate, red-plushed, oak-paneled conference room of the Parliament building, he briskly read Kovacs' "confession." Nagy, Kovacs, with others, had "plotted" against the Government. Then Rakosi called Nagy and told him what happens to democrats who try to do business with Communists.

In Budapest, the citizens considered that the Smallholders' Party had been wrecked. "Rakosi has eaten the last of the salami," was the word. They wondered, as they sipped their coffee along the Danube embankment, how a Premier could conspire against himself. Some said: "It seems that democracy has been made safe for Communism."

The new Premier was Lajos Dinnyes, who used to be a banker and a right-winger. Dinnyes has changed. His surname means melon. When Dinnyes, on taking the oath of office, promised to support the Communist three-year plan, Budapestians said he was a watermelon--red inside. The plan will give the Communist-run Government control of 85% of Hungarian industry.

Anti-Communists wondered what had become of one of their best-liked leaders, Father Bela Varga, a 6-ft. priest, who is Speaker of Parliament. No rightist, Varga has fought for years for land reform, led resistance groups against the Germans. When Dinnyes became Premier, Varga said: "What should I do? Run away and work for my country from outside, or stay and become a martyr?" At week's end, Budapest heard that 1) he had fled the country, and 2) he was hiding from the Reds in a convent.

And what will become of poor Nagy in Switzerland? Said a friend: "If he only knew another language besides Magyar, he could easily find a job as inspector or director of some farm."

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