Fraternity-Testvériség, 1960 (38. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1960-10-01 / 10. szám

6

FRATERNITY

believed to be America's hand in encouraging the rebellion; the Freedom Fighters were enraged by the United States' refusal to cheek the brutal Soviet regression with military intervention.

~k 'k ~k

The Communist radio in Hungary blasted not only America, but the Vice President particularly, asserting that the sole purpose of his visit was to provoke a border incident and thus launch a war. The Communists warned of another Sarajevo, where the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand triggered the First World War in 1914.-k ~k ~k

Incidentally, the assassination of the Vice President could have been easily accomplished when he courageously decided on a non- scheduled pre-dawn trip to Andau's “Freedom liridge" across the muddy little Einser Canal. The Russian and Hungarian border guards were within shooting range there.

★ * ★

The emotion-packed trip to the refugee camps — tehere there was no lure for winning votes — offered an excellent insight into little-known facets of his personality.

In one of my interviews with his wife, she took exception to the belief that he is incapable of showing warmth in public. She maintained that, though in a small group he appears to be reserved and rather shy, his mental reserve melts away in the midst of crowds. The refugee camps, comprising more than one hundred thousand distraught people, were ideal testing grounds for his attitude toward crowds.

Rut first let us examine how the Hungarians reacted toward him. In camps where my origin was not known, I was able to register the true feeling of the refugees concerning him and his visit. At Camp Boeder, near Salzburg, some of them took a dim view of the inspection tour. With Congressman Bob Wilson of San Diego, I teas standing near a group from the city of Miskolc rehen a woman expressed her views in a rather acid tone. “The whole thing is a clever publicity stunt", she said. "We are not interested in hand-shaking and speeches. We want immediate permission to migrate to America.” This was not the only critical comment on the tour. The critical voices, however, were energetically drowned out by those who were sincerely impressed by Nixon's visit and his personality. Almost everybody recognized the obvious difference between his democratic, down-to-earth informality and