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 the patronising and humiliating communication style of the trade adviser to Milan. In 1973, a disciplinary procedure was conducted against Mátyás Csillag. It was one he very much took offense to, so his farewell note was also attributed to this affront. The note, however, does mention threats that cannot be directly linked to the disciplinary procedure mentioned: Csillag was complaining of anti-Semitic comments that made him feel unsafe and prompted him to flee the country. “It seems my Jewish origins are unforgivable,”392 the adviser declared, suggesting that the procedure against him was also related to this. 392 ÁBTL 3.2.4 K-2971 Report on Bartyán, Anna, 15 December 1980, p. 203 393 For more details, cf. Borvendég 2018 394 During the years of state socialism, the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce was not the same as the system of representing interests established in the second half of the 19th century. The autonomous chamber system of the civil administration fell victim to the socialist regime, and although the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce was established in Csillag s appointment to the helm of Presto in the early 1960s raises an interesting question. Because he worked for MNVK-2, it is possible that supervising the commissions system was attractive to the secret services and they wanted to put their own man in position to control the sums paid by western companies to Hungarian traders. The aim, however, may have been to expand the illegal financial sources of the secret service, rather than to dramatically crack down on abuses. The Hoffmann case led to an investigation against the OMFB, which you can read about in the previous chapter and that was only partially successful for state security. While gathering information, they discovered the illegal finances of military intelligence, and an opportunity opened up for counterintelligence to launch a further investigation into the culpability of MNVK-2. During the investigation against the managers of Metalimpex, which operated as a base organisation for the military secret service, a number of illegal financial transactions were unveiled, but state security was also only able to deliver the appearance of success this time around as the company managers were sacrificed as scapegoats by the network behind them, leaving the operation of the system unaffected.393 The third major institution after OMFB and Presto that Hoffmann was obtaining his information from was the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce.394 145
