864.00/7–1847: Telegram
The Minister in Hungary (Chapin) to the Secretary of State
1202. Sulyok1 called on me yesterday and in course of hour’s conversation informed me that although he would endeavor to hold on to leadership of his party for as long as possible he planned to go into political retirement prior to elections and, if it was clear he was personally endangered, would attempt to flee Hungary. He stated he was issuing instructions to his party to abstain from forthcoming elections [Page 339] but that he felt in many cases of individual voters these instructions would not be followed since abstention would in itself in all probability be an act likely to provoke reprisals.
Sulyok stated it was evident from draft of electoral law that his party would not in near future be permitted to participate in the elections2 and he further foresaw no possibility of heading off “rigged” elections in the Rumanian, Bulgarian, and Polish pattern.
Sulyok stated roughly 80 members his party have been arrested and interned within last month, interestingly enough under same legislation of Sztojay regime under which Sulyok himself had been interned in 1944. In this connection press has reported in last two weeks arrest by political police of two youth leaders of Freedom Party as well as request by peoples prosecutor’s office for suspension of immunity rights of three Freedom Party deputies to National Assembly.
Coincidentally I had received a visit some minutes before Sulyok call from Freedom Party deputy Polinay who had been set upon the night before in a district Freedom Party headquarters by a Communist band and severely beaten. His face was a pulp. Violence at Freedom Party meetings has become so frequent that the party is in practice cancelling its meetings. In connection with a recent disturbance the Communist Szabad Nép3 had the temerity to publish a statement that participants in the Freedom Party meeting had left their hall and deliberately set upon “a group of innocent strolling workmen”.
He pleaded for assistance in crossing the border with his family before expiration of parliamentary immunity, a request I have also received from other members of non-Communist groups. Although from humane considerations since these men are marked for liquidation I should like to afford some assistance, there appears to be no adequate and safe means at my disposal and I have been forced at cost of my own and the American Govt’s prestige to return a firm but sympathetic refusal.
Although Sulyok was calm he was obviously despondent and he confined his remarks on US policy at the present juncture to stating that he was confident that the US would eventually halt what he described as the advance of Soviet imperialism.
- Dezsö Sulyok, leader of the Hungarian Freedom Party. On July 22, Sulyok Announced the dissolution of his party rather than see its members subjected to persecution.↩
- Telegram 1198, July 18, from Budapest, not printed, reported that following an inter-party agreement on July 12, a new electoral bill was introduced into the Hungarian National Assembly. One provision of the draft law would prohibit the candidacy of all former members of the Hungarian National Unity Party, thus disqualifying Sulyok and three other leaders of the Freedom Party (864.00/7–1847).↩
- The newspaper of the Hungarian Communist Party.↩