Office of the Historian

864.01/489a: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Minister in Portugal (Norweb)

Washington, March 31, 1944—11 a.m.

922. Information so far reaching the Department indicates that the Hungarian Ministers and most of their staffs at Lisbon, Stockholm, Helsinki,31 Bern and Madrid, as well as the Hungarian Consul General at Istanbul have taken the position that they will not accept instructions from the new puppet government in Budapest. No news has been received regarding the Hungarian Minister to the Vatican, although he is reported to be strongly pro-Allied in his personal sentiments.

While it is expected that a common policy will eventually be worked out with the British and Soviet Governments governing the treatment and facilities to be accorded diplomatic and other pro-Allied Hungarian elements, the following is sent to supplement the Department’s preliminary instruction of March 23:32

1.
You are authorized to have contact with any Hungarians who may establish to your satisfaction that they are genuinely desirous of enlisting Hungarian support for the Allied cause against the Germans.
2.
You should indicate our wish to encourage by every feasible means the efforts of all Hungarians in or out of Hungary who are desirous of building up the greatest possible Hungarian resistance to the Germans.
3.
You may make it known that our future attitude toward Hungary cannot but be influenced by the manner in which the Hungarian people respond to the present opportunity and necessity for resistance.
4.
It will not be desirable for you in any way to suggest that this Government favors any particular Hungarian organization abroad or that it recognizes or sponsors any special group. (For the Department’s attitude on free movements see Department’s confidential circular instruction of March 23, 1943 [1944].)
5.
It will be useful for the Department to have any information that may come into your possession regarding resistance movements, “underground” facilities and other developments.
6.
Whereas you may continue to transmit to other American Missions such messages as you believe will contribute to the development of Hungarian resistance, it should be made clear that this facility is of an emergency character and subject to eventual modification in consultation with Great Britain and the Soviet Union.

For your own confidential information, the Department’s information indicates that the Hungarian Minister in Ankara is definitely pro-Nazi and the Hungarian Minister at Stockholm, who has the reputation of having been pro-Nazi in the past although making every protestation of pro-Allied sentiment at present,33 does not enjoy the full confidence of his colleagues and would not be looked upon by them as a desirable leader.

At least some of the Hungarian diplomatic representatives are not resigning but taking the position that they continue to represent the only legal government of Hungary, i.e., the government in power prior to the German occupation. It is important to bear in mind that in so far as they succeed in maintaining this position they will, since the United States is at war with Hungary, also technically retain their quality as representatives of an “enemy” state.

Sent to Lisbon, Stockholm, Bern, Madrid, Ankara and Cairo.34

Hull
  1. György Szabó de Szentmiklós was Hungarian Minister in Finland.↩
  2. See telegram 485, March 23, 4 p.m., to Stockholm, p. 852.↩
  3. In telegram 1112, April 1, 1944, the Minister in Sweden reported that the Swedish Foreign Office did not share this opinion and “had documentary evidence of Ullein-Reviczky’s anti-German attitude before he was named Hungarian Minister to Sweden” (846.01/490). Subsequently, Minister Johnson sent additional reports to the same effect.↩
  4. As Nos. 922, 551,1076, 904, 281 (for repetition as 236 to Istanbul), and Yugos 19, respectively.↩