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 - Ties running deep
ATTACK ON THE OMFB he was working in close cooperation with Simon, only said that Phillips really was cheaper.500 Endre Simon was running out of wiggle room. 500 ÁBTL 3.1.5 0-15829/8. 114. Evaluation report, 22 February 1973 501 ÁBTL 3.1.5 0-15829/9. 22-27. Supreme Court judgement, 14 December 1973 502 ÁBTL 3.1.5 0-15829/9. 28-33. Supreme Court judgement, 20 June 1974 503 Ibid. 29. 504 For more on this topic, see: Borvendég 2018 At the first-instance trial on 10 and 12 December 1973, Endre Simon was found guilty of espionage, crimes violating foreign currency management and was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment and full confiscation of property.501 On 13 March 1974, the Supreme Court re-classified the acts as breaches of professional secrecy and reduced the sentence to six years in prison and the confiscation of 80,000 forints worth of property.502 In justifying the verdict, there was no mention, of course, of the irregularities and misuses by the OMFB, and none of the information recorded in the investigation documents made it to court. Simon was brought to court on account of data he revealed during conversations with officials of the Austrian and the British trade office. Based on these conversations, the representatives of the imperialist countries may have thought “there is no agreement on every issue within the socialist camp.”503 The crimes unveiled could not be blamed on Simon because that would inevitably have highlighted the culpability of his superiors. It is therefore hardly surprising that counterintelligence refused to accept that its investigation was to no avail, so they started a new investigation against one of Simons contacts in the hope of finding evidence of financial mismanagement that could no longer be covered up. This is how the investigation against the deputy general manager of Metalimpex was started, which partially directed the attention of state security in a new direction. This is how the illegal methods of accumulating hard currency by MNVK-2 were exposed, for which those responsible could not be held to account on this occasion either, because some of the profit from accumulating foreign currency was intended to support the international communist movement, but at least this made it possible to arrange a criminal trial for yet another scapegoat.504 181
