The Press MONDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1959. Hungary and World Freedom

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29071, 7 December 1959, Page 12

The Press MONDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1959. Hungary and World Freedom

The United Nations General Assembly will debate Hungary again this week. Twenty-four nations, including the United States and Britain, have tabled a resolution deploring the Soviet and Hungarian Govern-

ments’ disregard of the United Nations’ policy on Hungary and calling for co-operation with Sir Leslie Munro, the special investigator appointed by the General Assembly on December 12, 1958. The Assembly will also receive Sir Leslie Munro’s report, compiled from authoritative sources in spite of the Hungarian Government's refusal to admit him to the country. What good purpose, it may be asked, can be served by these discussions, by this return to tragedy? The Soviet Union and its satellites object to United Nations inquiries into the Hungarian situation because the Charter specifically forbids interference in the domestic affairs of any member State; and Russia (together with the Hungarian Government, of course) still regards the 1956 uprising as a purely domestic affair. Sir Leslie Munro, in his report, shows how illogical this is. The Communist efforts to veil the true' character of the Hungarian uprising, he says, “run “counter to good sense. It is “ contended [by the Com- “ munists] that the uprising ” was instigated by foreign “ Powers. Then how claim “ that the problem of Hungary “ was, and is, a matter of “ domestic jurisdiction ”? On November 23, before the steering committee of the General Assembly voted to include Hungary on the Assembly’s agenda, Soviet spokesmen invoked “the spirit of Camp “ David ” —the Maryland resort where President Eisenhower and Mr Khrushchev held private talks—in an endeavour to prevent consideration of Sir Leslie Munro’s report. Their argument seemed to be that to take up the indignities inflicted on the Hungarian people by the Russians and the Russian agents would engender bad feeling between the United States and Russia. The American representative (Mr Henry Cabot Lodge), who had attended the Camp David talks, replied: “ What is against the spirit of Camp David is any “ behaviour which makes a I

“ veritable mockery of peace- “ ful co-existence. Nothing “ happened at Camp David “which requires us to condone “ evil ”,

The Hungarian question has i assumed added importance because of the thaw in the cold war. While the constant aim must be the easing of tensions, the Soviet Union must be made aware of the free world’s refusal to compromise the basic principles of freedom. There must be no retreat from the ideals of liberty, equality, and justice for which numberless Hungarians have already died —and, according to Sir Leslie Munro, for which others are yet being murdered. Sir Leslie Munro has established that trials and executions of actual or potential rebels continue in Hungary, in spite of Government assurances to the contrary, and that, in defiance of the United Nations, Soviet military forces remain to support the Kadar puppet regime. In the interests of a Sovietinspired “ peace ”, are brutality, terror, and repression to be ignored? To please Mr Khrushchev, is the world’s conscience not to be reawakened to the lessons of Budapest, of Imry Nagy, and of Soviet perfidy? The Hungarian Government’s reluctance to have its affairs investigated reflects its insecurity. Since 1956 the Russians have carefully supervised events in Hungary. Soviet leaders have made frequent visits, ostensibly to encourage the Hungarian workers, more probably to look for signs of another “counter- “ revolution ”. Mr Khrushchev himself has been in Hungary at least three times in 18 months. The 1956 revolt, led by intellectuals, students, and workers, resulted in the virtual stoppage of the country’s intellectual life and in the loss of many persons upon whom the Russians would have relied most as the architects of a fully Communist State. Mr Khrushchev’s boastful and hypocritical speeches this month, during his most recent visit to Hungary, probably concealed wellfounded misgivings. Soviet overtures should not delude anybody into thinking that true freedom no longer needs striving for. Hungary today denotes the opposite of freedom. That is why it must be talked about.