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 tasks with enough enthusiasm, and deliberately failed to disclose his contacts, so he was excluded from the network in 1971.473 His activities related to the military are as yet unknown, but it is hard to imagine that anyone without an intelligence background could have been appointed to head a company partially under western ownership, so it is safe to assume that he continued to work for military intelligence even though he severed ties with the Ministry of Interior. Mihály Farkas, who had fervently advocated the growth of Siemens’ market share as the director of Transelektro, returned from his placement to Paris in the first half of the 1980s to take over the leadership of Sicontact. From this point on, there is no doubt the company fell under the competence ofMNVK-2. 473 ÁBTL 3.2.1 Bt-2331. 121. Recommendation, 6 May 1971 474 Cseh-Tóth 2017, p. 33-34 475 Sebők 2017 p. 144 Aimed at modernising machine data processing, the Titan programme at the Ministry of Interior was put in place in 1968 to replace the obsolete and slow punched card technology with new computer systems. This also contributed to making Siemens computers more widespread in the 1970s.474 As part of the programme, in 1972 the Ministry of Interior purchased a data processing system developed and built by Siemens, and which needed a separate building to house it. The establishment of Sicontact tackled the issue of spare parts supply and servicing, and thereby enabled Siemens to distribute its computers across the country unhindered. Siemens equipment was purchased for a number of institutions from the Central Statistical Office and OTP Bank to the Ministry of Finance. Between 1971 and 1973, so before the cooperation agreement was signed, the German firm was able to sell 11 computers in Hungary.475 This figure clearly improved once the agreement was signed and Sicontact was founded. During its investigation against Endre Simon, counterintelligence focused primarily on the cooperation with Siemens among the suspicious deals made by the OMFB. The documents reveal the background to the OMFB-Siemens framework agreement signed in 1973. After his arrest, Simon shared his cell 169
