1987. május (53-73. szám) / HU_BFL_XIV_47_2
í-'i, > iMtei^^i ál 2.4/0 littU RmicII Street, LONDON, WC.i ■ Ttl. 04-w *< & • G. Krani 62/1987 /E/ 14th May, 1987 Sándor Rácz in the United States The toolmaker Sándor Rácz has been the chairman of the Greater Budapest Wor- kers' Council from the 15th November 1956 to his árrést 11 December. He's been sentenced fór life, then granted amnesty in 1963 and working as a manual worker ever since. The 55 years old Sándor Rácz had his passport applications repeatedly refused and - yielding to foreign pressure - the Hungárián authorities granted him permission to travel to the West fór the first time. Rácz has been invited fór a round trip by the American trade-union federation AFL-CIO. Sándor Rácz arrived in the USA 6 May, Wednesday evening, where representatives of the government, trade-unions and the Hungárián immigrant colony received him with proper respect due to the outstanding workers' leader of the 1956 Hungárián revolution. Sándor Rácz has a very crammed programme. Already 7 May,the day following his ar- rival, he had a number of talks in Washington and he has been alsó received by Tóm Kahn, director of the International department of the AFL-CIO trade-union federation. The following day Lane Kirkland, chairman of AFL-CIO gave a banquet in Sándor Rácz's honour, who could talk at the white table with the leaders of more than twenty American trade-unions and has alsó given a number of interviews,among others the correspondent of Rádió Free Europe. On the 9th of May, Saturday, Sándor Rácz visited in the vicinity of Washington, Berkeley Springs, the 1956 Memóriái Chapell with the symbolic graves of Imre Nagy, Pál Maiéter, "the Hungárián soldier","the Budapest kid" and Bang-Jensen, the UNO- diplomat yielding his life in the defence of the Hungarians. He spent the Saturday aftemoon and Sunday with touring the city, seeing the sights of the grave of the assasinated president John F. Kennedy and the Vietnam monument;he alsó visited the vicinity of the city. On Monday, the llth Sándor Rácz again had talks at the AFL-CIO trade-union federation, at its international department, while in the evening he has given a lec- ture fór those invited by the World Association of Freedom Fighters and the Washington department of the Hungárián Association in America. The following day he visited József Kővágó, the imprisoned and in 1956 reelected mayor of Budapest, while on Wednesday he entered talks at the Voice of America Rádió Station with the well-known journalist Ben Wattenberg, deputy chairman of the International Telecommunications Office. All this has been only a few selections taken from the Washington programme of Sándor Rácz, which has ended fór the time being, because on the 13th, Wednesday evening Rácz left fór New Brunswick, where he will be the guest of the university professor Károly Nagy, chairman of the Bessenyei György Circle. On Thursday and Friday he presumably will visit a number of organizations in New York, among them the Helsinki Watch Committee following with attention violations of humán rights and the "Freedom House", while on Saturday he will talk within the scope of the already traditional series of lectures "Witnesses and our age" about the Hungárián revolution. Í2j
