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TIBOR DONATH is a portrait of the kind of Hungarian who became—under Russian tutelage—a career torturer for the AVO. It is a gruesome caricature of human nature at its most bestial; yet step by step, Reporter Michener has made the incredible monster a believable horror. The unprintable acts attributed by witnesses to Donath lead Michener to quote with approval the verdict of "one of America's finest and gentlest newspapermen," who said: "I was in Budapest at the time and although I believe that revengeful death accomplishes little, I devoutly believe that the human race would have been better off if the Hungarians had assassinated every one of the 30,000 AVO."
There are some hard words for the U.S. from refugees—the long delay before moral support came in President Eisenhower's message, the now familiar charges of inflammatory U.S. propaganda that could not be backed by real help. But these are minor matters compared to the ferocity of the Red terror. Often Reporter Michener himself appears amazed by the enormity of it, and to vouch for his accuracy he finds it necessary to declare solemnly that he has never fallen for phony horror stories—or for Red-baiting. To buttress the point, he cites his distaste for Wood-row Wilson's witch-hunting Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, who comes into the book as a stray ghost from a poignantly innocent past. The U.S. has lost its innocence about Communism, but still, Michener asks himself whether his story will be believed in all its details by a prosperous and relatively carefree nation. He cites Mrs. Maria Marothy, who now Jives in Ohio. Michener wonders: If some day a good neighbor at the A. & P. should ask what happened to her hand, will she be believed when she tells that it was broken by the rubber clubs of the AVO?