HOW IMRE NAGY DIED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000500400004-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 29, 2003
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: February 4, 1966
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Relea(Q[01A~1P8)RDP75-0014
February i+, 1966
How Imre Nagy
GABRIEL LORINCE
imre Nagy, the Hungarian national-
communist leader and prime minister in the
short-lived 1956 uprising, was executed with-
out a trial together with other leaders of the
revolt. So Arpad Szakasits, the former presi-
dent of Hungary, is reliably reported to have
told friends before his death last year. The
\Vest German magazine Der Spiegel, quoting
the testimony of a highly-placed Hungarian
official who escaped to the West last autumn,
recently revealed for the first time that Imre
Nagy and two journalists, Miklos Gimes and
Jozsef Szilagyi, were assassinated in the
cellar of the former royal summer castle at
Sinaia, Rumania, by a Hungarian Secret
Police commando. The 'liquidation' took
place on 28 or 29 January 1957 - some 18
months before Tass, the official Soviet news
agency, and subsequently the MTI, the Hun-
garian news agency, reported on 17 June 1958
j that Nagy and his 'accomplices' had been
sentenced to death for counter-revolutionary
activities and high treason and executed. The
brief announcement did not mention the time
and place of the alleged trial, nor did it name
the defence counsel, prosecutor, and judge.
Two days after the official Hungarian
announcement, Geza Szcnasi, the Hungarian
Prosecutor-General, told a packed press con-
ference that the trial had been held in secret
because of 'state interests'. He added: 'Fairs
accomplis always have a soothing effect upon
our people.' The official version, correct
thou,,.. r was in its appraisal of the effects
of foils nrrrnrrplic, is too vague to be con-
vincing and the whispered words of President
Szakasits, together with the circumstantial
evidence provided by the defecting Hungarian
official, seem to substantiate the fear that
Imre Nagy, a life-long communist and twice
prime minister of his country, met his death
in the worst tradition of Stalinist lawlessness.
The Hungarian official, whose name is
known to the German magazine but who
prefers to remain anonymous for obvious
reasons, recalled in his testimony that, on 22
November 1956, Nagy and a group of his
closest associates, including the world-famous
Marxist philosopher Georg Lukacs, left the
Yugoslav Embassy in Budapest, where they
had taken refuge when 2,000 Russian tanks
Died,
attacked the Hungarian capital. D. Soldatic,
then Yugoslav ambassador in Budapest, said
Nagy and his friends left the embassy 'on
their own initiative and of their own accord'
on the strength of a sale-conduct issued by
Janos Kadar's government. A bus was to
have taken them to their homes. Although
Kadar in a note had given President Tito
written assurances that 'no member of the
Nagy group would have to stand trial' for
their past activities and guaranteed the safety
of their lives, the bus was stopped by Russian
soldiers barely.. 300 yards from the embassy
and the escorting Yugoslav diplomats ordered
off. Then, flanked by two Soviet tanks, it was
driven to Soviet army headquarters. Nagy
and his friends disappeared. President Tito
protested. Janos Kadar, in a secret reply, told
the Yugoslav President that Nagy had gone
to Rumania at his own wish. 'Had Nagy and
his companions remained in Budapest, they
might have become the victims of an assas-
sination plot for which the I-tungarian govern-
ment would have been held responsible.'
According to Der Spiegel, in January 1957
the American Central -intelligence Agency
succeeded in tracking down Nagy and his
friends in Sinaia, the Rumanian winter resort,
but then lost the trail. It is known that in the
last week of January the women and children
and lesser officials of the group were taken
to Snagov, near Bucharest, and eventually
allowed to return to Hungary. mire Nagy,
Miklos Gimes and Jozsef Szilagyi, however,
remained in Sinaia under close guard, On 28
or 29 January a special execution squad of
the AVO, the Hungarian State Security Police,
arrived from Budapest and 'liquidated' the
former prink minister and the two journalists
in the cellar of the summer castle,
The AVO commando, carrying their sten-
guns in true James Bond fashion in sleek
metal containers, travelled back to Budapest
on 30 January in two reserved compartments.
The Rumanian Secret Police saw to it that
they were exempt from any controls at the
frontier. During the long journey the AVO
men talked 'shop'. Snatches of their conver-
sation were overheard by the refugee official
who was also travelling on the train. 'Fcri's
hand trembled,' said one voice, 'I saw it
STAT
clearly. lie got nervous when the old man
barked at him so steadfastly. That is why he
knocked on' his glasses. Still, lire Nagy
impressed me.' 'But the little Szilagyi was
definitely ridiculous,' remarked another. 'Did
you sec how he hugged Lajos' knees? He
would just have loved to creep back into his
mother's belly . , .'
The AVO commando, was met at Buda.
pest's Keleti Station by a colonel and driven
off in two big limousines followed by a jeep.
The first car carrying the head of the execu-
tion squad bore the number plate A-127. It
belonged to the state prosecutor-general's
office. Geza Szcnasi must have overlooked
this (act when, 18 months later, he announced
that Nagy had been trial by a court.
Imre Nagy, tile Moscow-trained communist
who introduced a new brand of 'human and
national communism' and had the courage
to denounce at the United Nations Russia's
intervention in Hungary, was not the type
who could be protitabjy tried at a show-trial
or even in the secrecy of a Koestieresque
'Darkness at Noon'. So Imre Nagy had to die
without a trial without a chance to defend
himself and his actions. But, it seems, he died
Approved For Release 2004/01/16 : CIA-RDP75-00149R000500400004-2