864.00/6–947
The Second Secretary of the British Embassy (Solly-Flood) to the Acting Chief of the Division of Southern European Affairs (Barbour)
420/119/47
My Dear Wally: May I please refer to the communication which you suggested should be delivered by the United States Representative in the Allied Control Commission for Hungary to the Soviet Acting Chairman about the recent crisis in Hungary resulting in the resignation of M. Nagy.1
The Foreign Office share your disquiet about the recent events in Hungary. They do not feel, however, that on the evidence at present available to them they should be wise to authorise a protest to the Soviet authorities through the Allied Control Commission in Budapest. They have not yet seen the documents which were communicated to the Hungarian Government by the Soviet authorities in Hungary. If these documents, as seems likely, should show that the late Prime Minister was implicated in a conspiracy to overthrow the present Government or to take unconstitutional action against the Hungarian Communists on the entry into force of the Peace Treaty, they should have no means of proving that this allegation was false. They point out that it is, of course, a reasonable assumption that what has recently happened in Hungary is a long planned step in the evolution of the policy of the Soviet Government of establishing a puppet government in Hungary before the entry into force of the Peace Treaty. But there are no proofs of this and if charges to this effect were made in the Allied Control Commission, His Majesty’s Government and the United States Government would simply court a rebuff from the Russians similar to that given last March. The only effect of this would be to demonstrate how impotent His Majesty’s Government and the United States Government are to influence the course of events in Hungary.
[Page 316]In these circumstances the Foreign Office greatly regret that if the United States Government wish to pursue the matter in the Allied Control Commission they should not be able to authorise the British Representative to take parallel action. On the other hand they are not prepared to let matters rest where they are and they propose to instruct His Majesty’s Ambassador in Moscow to take the whole question up with Mr. Molotov and to seek clarification of the Soviet Government’s attitude. This course of action may have the advantage that the discussion cannot be closed by a formal note from the Soviet authorities such as closed the correspondence with the Allied Control Commission in Hungary last March. It will be possible to pursue the matter at greater length and more fully with the Soviet Government and the Foreign Office hope that Sir M. Peterson will be able to provoke Mr. Molotov to argument and to obtain some real clarification of the Soviet Government’s policy in Hungary. The discussions will have the added advantage that they will be confidential and will not expose us publicly to rebuffs from the Russians as happened last March as a result of our communications to the Allied Control Commission in Hungary.
So far as the Hungarian Government are concerned, the Foreign Office propose to send them a general warning that His Majesty’s Government intend to watch the situation with extreme care in the next few months. I send you herewith as enclosure “A” to this letter a paraphrase of a telegram from the Foreign Office to Mr. Helm, giving him instructions to this effect.2
Should you, however, decide to proceed with your proposed communication to the Soviet Acting Chairman of the Allied Control Commission, the Foreign Office think that you may care to take into account certain comments given by Mr. Helm. While agreeing in the broad outlines of your draft note, if such a note is to be delivered, Mr. Helm feels that it could with advantage be modified by the omission of certain passages which would only give grounds to the Leftists for counter attacks, e.g. references to the minority parties (which together represent at least forty percent of the electorate) and to the “unprotected” Hungarian people, and to the Russians for evading the real issue. In Mr. Helm’s opinion the evidence obtained is prima facie incriminating to the late Prime Minister and to a lesser extent to others and in practice he doubts whether anything can be achieved by attempting to gloss it over let alone dismiss it. While he thinks that this point should be evaded as much as possible, he thinks that greater and more specific emphasis should be laid on the flagrant and unilateral Soviet interference in Hungarian internal affairs deliberately [Page 317] designed in collusion with the Hungarian Communist party to discredit the leaders of the major party and to bring about not only the fall of the Government but its replacement by one in conformability with Russian wishes. Russian action in Kovács case was justified on the grounds of Soviet military security. If in this case General Sviridov pretends, as he seems to do, that he was merely the agent of the Soviet High Command, the latter was acting entirely ultra vires as no military question whether of security or anything else was involved, the issue being one of Hungarian internal politics.
I send you herewith as enclosure “B” to this letter the instructions sent by the Foreign Office to Sir Maurice Peterson in Moscow to form the basis of his discussion with Mr. Molotov.3
I should be glad to learn from you as soon as possible what course of action the United States Government now propose to take.
Yours very sincerely,