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Shattered Faith. Among them may be many Hungarians, who are ardently antiCommunist. Laszlo Mogyorossy, head of the freedom-fighter veterans of the 1956 Hungarian uprising, believes that Ford's remark actually reflected American policy toward Eastern Europe, which he feels has been written off in the name of detente with the Soviet Union. Said he: "We should have known all along we were right. Our faith in the Republican Party is shattered." The Hungarian-American Republican National Federation met last week to reconsider its endorsement of Ford. Its leaders did not withdraw support, but they sent a sharp letter to the President demanding the dismissal of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and a revision of the Helsinki agreement, in which the U.S. acknowledged the current borders in Eastern Europe.
While ethnics were genuinely indignant and apprehensive about Ford's remarks, their reaction has been self-serving to a degree. They, too, are pursuing a political strategy, and the President in a sense did them a favor. Says Masewski: "There's an old Polish saying —'There isn't anything so bad that it doesn't turn out for the good.' That is what has happened here. This has brought the attention of the American people to the struggle for a free Poland." Ford had inadvertently dramatized the cause of the ethnic groups while damaging, at least momentarily, his own election chances.