Office of the Historian

329. Telegram From the Embassy in Yugoslavia to the Department of State1

10408/Depto 50008.
Belgrade, November 12, 1986, 1915Z

For the Secretary from Whitehead.

SUBJECT

  • My Visit to Budapest—Nov. 11–12, 1986.
1.
Secret—Entire text.
2.
I spent the first two days of my visit to Eastern Europe in Budapest, talking at length with all the important officials,2 except for Kadar who was in Moscow, and visiting factories, schools and farms. The Hungarians are proud of what they’ve accomplished. It is a mixed economy. Government-owned businesses, cooperatives, and private sector free enterprises operate side by side, with the latter two growing at the expense of the former. The people are free to move about, change jobs, buy homes. Forty percent of the population visited some other country last year. The churches seem free. There are lots of newspapers. No Soviet troops were evident, but no one forgets their presence. Everyone criticized the Soviets freely when they thought it was justified, but were generally positive about Gorbachev.
3.
My visit was most welcome. They are eager for closer relations with the U.S. Nick Salgo has done a fine job and they now look forward to Mark Palmer. I told everyone that you had asked me to take on a special responsibility to improve our relationship with Eastern European countries and that my visit was a first step.
4.
In thinking about the visit, I decided that if I came only with good intentions I would not accomplish much so I tried to develop a presentation which contained some specific proposals on ways to improve the dialogue.
5.
With the Foreign Minister, his deputy, and the party’s chief foreign policy maker, I took the occasion to brief them on what happened [Page 1032] at Vienna.3 They had already heard a distorted account from Moscow. They welcomed the report and my guarded optimism. I then proposed and they accepted three specific ways to improve our dialogue:
—
agreement to a meeting of experts every six months on regional issues and other items as appropriate. They suggested CSCE as a possible agenda item and I agreed;
—
agreement to work quietly and professionally on terrorism. I offered a visit by Jerry Bremer which they enthusiastically accepted;
—
agreement to focus our dialogue on tech transfer on what is possible rather than on what is impossible. The present system is that the Hungarians make a request and we turn them down. It would be better if we could try to define what we can do with them and work from there to reach specific agreements.
6.
I also let them know that I thought our trade was too small and that we should work to increase it. Among other things, we will revive the Hungarian-American Business Council.
7.
This is a country that is moving slowly away from the Soviets and toward the West. We can speed up the process if we try a little harder.
Scanlan
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, N860011–0079. Secret; Immediate; Nodis.↩
  2. Telegram 10102 from Budapest, November 12, conveyed the November 10 meeting between State Secretary Horn and Whitehead. (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, D860863–0579) Telegram 100084 from Budapest, November 12, reported on Whitehead’s meeting with Party Secretary Havasi. (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, D860863–0183) Telegram 10411 from Belgrade, November 12, described Whitehead’s discussion with Hungarian Politburo Member Szuros. (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, D860863–0936) Telegram 100053 from Budapest, November 11, reported on Whitehead’s consultations with Hungarians regarding terrorism. (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, N860011–0049)↩
  3. Reference is to the CSCE follow-up meeting held in Vienna, November 4–6.↩