Borvendég Zsuzsanna: Fabulous Spy Games. How international trade networks with the West developed after 1945 - A Magyarságkutató Intézet Kiadványai 24. (Budapest, 2021)
ATTACK ON THE OMFB - The Siemens lobby
ATTACK ON THE OMFB up the chain of command, but counterintelligence tried to reconstruct what had happened four years later. To establish responsibility, they focused on Sándor Énekes, former director of the steelworks, whom they would have brought to court had the statute of limitations not run out in 1974. Sándor Énekes worked for the foreign trade lobby, for István Dévai to be precise, who was in direct contact with the OMFB, as well as the group that was operating within military intelligence and enriching itself by illegal means. This group was firmly opposed to those committed to the new economic mechanism, including Péter Vályi. In addition, Vályi travelled to the USA not long before his death as the first high-ranking Hungarian political leader to do so. This reinforced his affinity to the USA, and he continued to lobby strongly for an improvement in Hungarian-US economic relations. Sebestyén and Simon were suspicious of Vályi s intentions to help American firms gain markets in Hungary. This is implied by the fact that the Ministry of Interior ordered a search of Endre Simons workplace after he was arrested and a report was made of the irregularities detected. The Ministry of Interior was always highly aware of the shortcomings of the TÜK secret document management system, so they registered and archived documents from the ‘ Fábián dossier that had not been managed properly. We know that one of the thorniest questions for counterintelligence during the investigation against Emil Hoffmann was how the German journalist got his hands on information on Comecon that was believed to have been confidential, and the evidence clearly led back to the OMFB, and to Sebestyén. When his house was searched in 1973, copies of classified materials were recovered from Simons drawers, including draffs, blueprints and descriptions mostly of large technical investment projects, such as the conditions for the development of the scientific foundations required to establish the Paks nuclear plant, and the documents specifying the locations of the substations for the high-voltage power lines planned between the Soviet Union and Hungary, and related operation issues. There was a note among the seized documents that was copied by Robert Geist for Simon, making sure to omit the classified’ (tűk.) label, or, as the Ministry of Interior put it: “he de-TÜK-ed it ”. The note was entitled Topics to be raised with regard to the negotiations of Comrade Vályi in the USA, which set it apart from the other 173
