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 - Storm clouds
ATTACK ON THE OMFB Even though Geist was supposed to be an agent of the Ministry of Interior, he did not cooperate with them according to counter intelligence: “He always avoided having to work Hungarian targets, we doubt we will be able to use him in [the] ‘ Fábián case [i.e. in the investigation against Endre Simon] this time round either. To our knowledge, he’s had a good relationship with ‘ Fábián for years, which would particularly hamper his usefulness.”432 They did indeed find little use for him and he did barely any work for state security from 1966 onwards. Eventually, he was struck off the network without being told.433 The various reports prepared during the investigation against Endre Simon claimed that Robert Geist was a close confidant of‘ Fábián. He covered for him and even influenced him, but there was nonetheless no investigation launched against him and his career remained unbroken. In 1982, Geist was already head of the Hungarian trade mission to Stockholm, which would have been unthinkable without an intelligence background. State security documents include a reference to MNVK-2 requesting Geists dossier at counterintelligence in 1969 for review purposes, and there is also a hand-written note from 1963. This implies that he also had a dossier with an ‘Mt’ number with military intelligence, which was used to collect reports on persons recruited by the network.434 In addition, counterintelligence also claimed to know that Geist signed a recruitment statement for military intelligence on 10 April 1959, but he was never used, at least to their knowledge.435 Based on this, it is reasonable to assume that military intelligence had already secured Geist as a committed source during his stay in Frankfurt. This is how he ended up in the network that was being built around Sebestyén, which explains how he was able to work as a diplomat in the 1980s even though his relations with state security were broken off. As passive as Geist was as an agent according to the Ministry of Interior, he must have been all the more enthusiastic as a member of military intelligence, because he also acted on behalf of a company called Eurocom,436 the first company established 432 ÁBTL 3.2.1 Bt-751/1, p. 71 Transcript, 1 April 1970 433 ÁBTL 3.2.1 Bt-751/1, p. 118 Report, 14 September 1984 434 ÁBTL 3.2.1 Bt-751/1, p. 130 Request form, 7 July 1963 435 ÁBTL 3.1.5 0-15829/4, p. 150 Report, 27 November 1970 436 Eurocom was registered in August 1972. Its task was to top up the budget of military 157
