Borvendég Zsuzsanna: Fabulous Spy Games. How international trade networks with the West developed after 1945 - A Magyarságkutató Intézet Kiadványai 24. (Budapest, 2021)
‘FABULOUS’ IN HUNGARY - End game
FABULOUS SPY GAMES intelligence on the revival of Nazi organisations. He was retired in 1962 but continued to work as an agent and became the representative of several British companies385 before going on to be employed by386 Hungagent.387 385 ÁBTL 3.1.2 M-21284/3 p. 283 Report, 20 February 1963 386 ÁBTL 3.1.2 M-21284/5 p. 152 Note, 25 June 1964 387 The trading company Hungagent was established in the mid-1960s. It was not just yet another specialised foreign trade company, but specifically acted as a trade agent, i.e. engaged in intermediary activities. 388 Nikex distributed heavy industry products. 389 MOGÜRT (Hungarian National Vehicles Shareholding Company) traded vehicles and parts for repair. 390 ÁBTL 3.1.9 V-160338/7 p. 38 Report on the dissident Mátyás Csillag, 13 June 1974 391 On the topic, see: Borvendég 2017, p. 111-160 In 1962, a new man was appointed to head Presto who is known to have been a committed source of MNVK-2: Mátyás Csillag. Originally a trained blacksmith, Csillag was hired in 1945 by the Political Department of the Ministry of the Interior. He worked in trade from 1948 onwards, first at the foreign trade company Nikex,388 then at Technoimpex. Between 1952 and 1958, he was an attaché of the trade office in Beijing, before being employed by Technoimpex and MOGÜRT 389 for a few years, after which he moved to Presto to be posted abroad again in 1967 and was sent to Kuwait for ten months. From Kuwait, he was transferred to the trade office in Milan, which he headed until he ‘deserted’ on 27 September 1973. Milan was a base for military intelligence and it is clear that Csillag worked for MNVK-2. Following the abandonment of his post, it did occur to the detectives of state security that their counterpart had a hand in removing Csillag from the equation and setting him up at a subsidiary of a US firm.390 They were unable to prove this, but considering Csillag was given a job at a firm called Phillip Brothers that played a pivotal role in arranging an oil transit deal which caused severe damage to Hungary later on, and where certain officers of military intelligence were also involved, this assumption does not seem particularly far-fetched.391 The interesting aspect of his escape was not only this dubious assumption, but also his farewell note to László Darvas, then trade adviser at the Rome office. What lies in the background to the case is that the employees working under Csillag reported him to Darvas, complaining about 144
