Fraternity-Testvériség, 1956 (34. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1956-06-01 / 6. szám
12 FRATERNITY “We found [the Museum] under a strong Rumanian guard. One man tried to stop us, but it did not do him much good.” It is easy to picture the General even now, eyes flashing, “weapon” poised in mid-air . . . “I had the director deliver the key to the storeroom to me . . . and left a paper worded as follows: “ ‘To whom it may concern: As the Inter-Allied Military Mission is in charge of all objects in the Hungarian National Museum at Budapest, the key has been taken charge of by the President of the Day, General Bandholtz, the American representative.’ “This was followed by my signature. I then had Colonel Loree place seals on each of the [three] doors, on which it was written: “ ‘This door sealed by Order Inter-Allied Military Mission. H. H. Bandholtz, Pres, of the day. 5 October 1919.’ “As the Rumanians and all other Europeans are fond of rubber- stamp display, and as we had nothing else, we used an American mail censor stamp, with which we marked each of the seals.” At next morning’s session the General “related to my colleagues my experience . . . and asked whether or not the Mission approved of the same, knowing in advance that General Gorton was with me ... I said I personally would take all the responsibility and state that what I had done was done as American representative. At this, General Graziani very gallantly and promptly spoke up and said: ‘No, I am with my colleague.’ And that settled it. I then telegraphed the American Commission in Paris a statement of what had occurred, and wound up with the sentence: ‘In the meantime the seals are on the doors, and we await developments’.” Next day, General Mosoiu, chief of the Rumanian forces in Budapest, invited Bandholtz and his staff to lunch. “Seven of us went over and had an American-Rumanian love feast. At the entrance to the Hotel, they had an honor guard drawn up, with a band which sounded off with what was supposed to be the Star-Spangled Banner. After we had entered the dining room, the band came and repeated what was again supposed to be the Star-Spangled Banner but which was different from the first offense. When we finally left, they sounded off again with the third variety ...” General Mosoiu said that General Bandholtz “had put him between the devil and the deep blue sea. His orders were to seize articles in the Museum; he could not seize them without breaking my seals, and he did not dare to break the seals, so all he could see was disaster approaching in large quantities.” A typical “policy move” by the self-trained diplomatist followed: “General Mosoiu toasted ‘Les États-Unis’, which was responded to with raucous Rumanian shouts. In return, I gave them ‘the Allies and a lasting friendship’, thereby avoiding a direct allusion to any Greater Rumania” — a smooth trick indeed, motivated by the fact that the drafts of the Trianon Treaty (which was to attach Hungarian Transylvania to Rumania) were not yet in final form. Amid a nerve-wracking and seemingly endless series of disturbing and sometimes alarming occurrences that kept demanding action through
