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' IN HUNGARY Presto’ s general manager Jenő Havas “also had a number of financial interests, which he was able to establish, particularly during his frequent visits abroad.”381 Havas was an old communist cadre who had considerable experience in the advertising and propaganda businesses. In 1919, at the time of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, he played an active role as a member of the Communist Party and became a member around this time.382 During 1920-1921, he was held in custody for brief periods on several occasions, but he emigrated to Vienna in 1921, where he established an advertising company. After Austria was occupied in 1938, he fled to London, where he lived until 1947 and was chairman of the Hungarian Club in London before returning home.383 The investigation documents on him from 1953 show that, although a show trial was also prepared against him as part of the Party’s internal reckoning, he was eventually released in the absence of evidence, even though he worked for British intelligence by his own admission. We may take the label of‘imperialist spy’ appearing in the documents dating back to the first half of the 1950s with a handful rather than a pinch of salt, but the secret service maelstrom outlined in the first chapter of this book makes Havas’ story plausible. It was he who “travelled to Vienna in the summer of 1945 on behalf of British military intelligence with the task of exploring the revival of Nazi organisations and reporting on them. Havas carried out the task as a correspondent of the British military magazine Weltpresse?384 In 1946, Havas severed his relationship with the British secret services on the grounds that they also wanted reports on left-wing parties. This confession was accepted by state security and Havas was released. His dossier was archived as no evidence was found that British intelligence was also spying on the communists. The top job at Presto was therefore held by an advertising expert with excellent English and German skills who provided information on Hungarian foreign trade without any reservations whatsoever to the former Nazi officer Emil Hoffmann, but it was clearly no longer his job to supply 381 ÁBTL 3.1.5 O-12344/7-a p. 159 Report, 17 April 1963 382 ÁBTL 3.1.9 V-150271 p. 3 Recommendation in the case of Jenő Havas, 28 December 1953 383 Ibid. 384 Ibid. 143
