vera and the ambassador s t a t e u n i v e r s i t y o f n e w y o r k p r e s s Vera and the Ambassador Escape and Return VERA and DONALD BLINKEN Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2009 Donald and Vera Blinken All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu Production, Laurie Searl Marketing, Fran Keneston Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Blinken, Vera and Blinken, Donald. Vera and the ambassador : escape and return / Vera Blinken and Donald Blinken. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-1-4384-2663-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Blinken, Vera. 2. Blinken, Donald. 3. Ambassador’s spouses—United States—Biography. 4. Ambassadors—United States—Biography. 5. Ambassadors—Hungary—Biography. 6. United States—Foreign relations—Hungary. 7. Hungary—Foreign relations—United States. 8. Hungarian Americans—Biography. 9. Hungary—Biography. I. Blinken, Donald. II. Title. E840.8.B58A3 2009 327.2092'2—dc22 [B] 2009002528 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 In memory of Lili and Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. They made this possible. CONTENTS Prologue ix PART I: VERA Escape 3 Return 29 PART II: DONALD Getting There 45 Early Days 65 PART III: VERA Being There 93 PART IV: DONALD Getting Things Done 169 Epilogue 281 Key Events in Hungarian History 285 Acknowledgments 289 Index 291 PROLOGUE D uring most of the twentieth century, Hungary, a nation of approximately ten million people, was in the eye of political, ethnic, and military storms. Hungarians have never fully recovered from the 1920 Treaty of Trianon at the end of World War I that caused Hungary to lose two-thirds of its territory and almost half of its population. Moreover, the country could not escape its geographic destiny, poised between the Russian Empire to the East, the Balkans to the South, and a relentless pressure from an aggressive Germany in the West. For most of the twentieth century, Hungary was constantly vulnerable to external forces. During World War II, having been promised the return of its lost territories, Hungary sided with the Axis Powers, and its home- grown Arrow Cross Nazi Party was complicit in the extermination of 600,000 Hungarian Jews. Following the expulsion of the Germans by Allied Forces in 1945, Hungary fell under the iron grip of a Soviet- controlled Communist regime. In 1956, the Hungarians regained a sense of their identity because, even though their attempt to break free of a repressive regime failed, the world took notice. In the decades that followed, some of ix x PROLOGUE the most talented Hungarians escaped to the West, among them a number of world-class scientists. Those who remained at home were often pragmatic, managing to retain some of their special character- istics. In what came to be known as “goulash communism,” private incentives and artistic dissent began to pierce the communist gloom. In 1978, the United States returned the Crown of St. Stephen—the symbol of Magyar independence—not to the government, but to the people of Hungary. (At the request of Hungary at the end of World War II, the United States had safeguarded the crown at Fort Knox.) Its return gave a strong symbolic boost to U.S.-Hungarian relations, even as the Cold War continued. A decade later, Hungary’s dramatic opening of its border with Austria triggered the November 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall. This in turn led to the breakup of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union and signifi ed the end of the Cold War. By the time we arrived to take up our post in April 1994, Hungary had held free elections, mended relations with Western nations, and watched the last occupying Soviet troops leave in 1991. Hungary’s prospects, however, while optimistic, were not yet assured. Would Hungary embrace free markets or fall back into a command economy? Could Hungary make a 180-degree turn from the Warsaw Pact to a Western system of collective security such as the Partnership for Peace or even NATO? With the demise of Nicolae Ceausescu, the Romanian dictator, and the breakup of Czechoslovakia—home to more than two and one-half million Hungarians—how would Hungary manage the ethnic tensions that were beginning to reassert themselves? What would Hungary be prepared to do about restitu- tion to its approximately 125,000 Jewish citizens, some 20,000 of whom were Holocaust survivors? Would the Hungarian people be able to shake off forty years of a communist mindset and a refl exive reliance upon government to make decisions for them? Yes, the red stars were removed from public buildings and bridges, as the Soviet Union collapsed, but how and when would the lasting impact of those red stars be erased?