864.00/3–646: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Minister in Hungary ( Schoenfeld )

secret

288. The Dept has noted urtels 464, March 6, 499, March 1250 and related telegrams reporting that position coalition Govt in Hungary is being rendered increasingly precarious by minority pressure. Reports from your British colleague51 made available to Dept by British Embassy here are of similar tenor.

While this Govt does not wish to interfere in purely internal political affairs of Hungary it seems to us that attitude of Prime Minister who indicates that coalition must be maintained at all costs is of questionable wisdom from standpoint of Hungarians and that continual concessions to minority group cannot but in end lead to negation of Peoples’ mandate given to Prime Minister’s majority party in recent free elections.

In circumstances, if views of this Govt are sought in this connection, you may orally inform inquirers in sense of foregoing, at same time emphasizing of course that problem is one for solution by Hungarians and that opinion of this Govt is given merely in effort to be helpful.

Dept understands British propose to issue similar guidance to your [Page 274] British colleague and that Mr. Bevin52 contemplates informing Hungarian representative in London in this sense prior to latter’s imminent return to Budapest for consultation.

Sent to Budapest; repeated to London and Moscow.53

Byrnes
  1. Telegram 499, March 12, from Budapest, not printed, but see footnote 44, p. 272.
  2. Alvary Douglas Frederick Gascoigne, British Political Representative in Hungary.
  3. Ernest Bevin, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
  4. As telegrams 2435 and 499, respectively.