The Capital: Crossing the Potomac

The State Department’s announcement was about as terse as a bureaucratic bulletin can be. Janos Radvanyi, Hungary’s chief of mission to the U.S., had “decided that he wishes to become a permanent resident of the United States, and it is our understanding that he is submitting a letter of resignation to his government.” Thus last week, little more than two months after the defection of Svetlana Allilueva Stalina, another Communist VIP made the big switch. The highest-ranking Communist diplomat ever to have defected to the West,* Radványi was, in addition, an invaluable source for U.S. intelligence on recent events in the fast-changing countries of Eastern Europe.

An affable professional who has held some of Hungary’s most sensitive diplomatic posts, Radványi was sent to Washington in 1962 to further the Kádár regime’s goal of improving Hungary’s strained relations with the U.S. In this he was partially successful, since Washington was by no means reluctant; and he was instrumental in getting both countries to agree to elevate their legations to embassies. The State Department knew in January of Radványi’s promotion from chargé d’affaires to ambassador, one of his fondest dreams; Washington had only to announce its own ambassadorial appointment to Budapest to make it official.

A Simple Matter. Early last week Radványi called his office to say that he planned to take a few days off. Next he called “American authorities”—most likely his old friend Dean Rusk—to ask asylum for himself, his wife Julianna and their son János, 15. When his housekeeper, a watchdog assigned by Budapest, returned to the Radványis’ house at 2838 Arizona Avenue, N.W., from a shopping trip the following afternoon, the three occupants had disappeared with their possessions and left no forwarding address (they went to a suburban hideout). Forty-five minutes later, the State Department made its laconic statement.

Why had he come over? Personal considerations—his wife had been ill for some time—unquestionably played a part. But another reason he gave U.S. authorities was his country’s hardening attitude toward the American position in Viet Nam. Though Hungarian diplomats had played a key role in a short-lived effort to bring Hanoi and Washington together before and during the 1966 bombing pause, Budapest gave up all efforts to effect a settlement last fall and reportedly ordered Radványi to abandon mediation attempts. Devoutly believing in closer East-West relations, Radványi became increasingly—and, in the end, irrevocably—frustrated by his government’s instructions, and opted for American citizenship rather than a Hungarian ambassadorship.

* Though a Rumanian minister and another Hungarian head of mission defected to the U.S. in the ’40s, neither was as high in his own government as Radványi, who held the coveted rank of career ambassador.