[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 16]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 22548-22549]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  TRIBUTE TO THE LATE MIKLOS VASARHELYI, HUNGARIAN PATRIOT AND MAN OF 
                               PRINCIPLE

                                 ______
                                 

                               TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 6, 2005

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I invite my colleagues in the Congress of 
the United States

[[Page 22549]]

to join me today in paying tribute to the late Miklos Vasarhelyi, a 
Hungarian of great courage and integrity who played a critically 
important role before and during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, and 
again in the 1970s and 1980s, in the struggle to transform Hungary from 
a one-party communist state into a multi-party democracy.
   On October 14, Mr. Speaker, members of Miklos Vasarhelyi's family, 
friends, and admirers will gather in the city that was called Fiume, 
Hungary, when he was born there on October 9, 1917, and which today is 
Rijeka, Croatia. They will place a plaque honoring him on the wall of 
the very house where Mr. Vasarhelyi was born.
   Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize his significant contributions 
to the cause of freedom and democracy. After university studies in Rome 
and Debrecen (Hungary), he became involved in anti-Fascist political 
activities. As a result, he spent two years in a forced labor battalion 
during World War II, and he joined the anti-Nazi resistance.
   From 1953 to 1955, Mr. Vasarhelyi served as press secretary to 
Hungary's reform-minded Prime Minister, Imre Nagy. In that capacity, he 
successfully fought for more freedom of the press from central control. 
During the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, he again assumed a key role in 
the Imre Nagy government that was established after the uprising broke 
out. He was one of three high-ranking officials who convinced Prime 
Minister Nagy to open a dialogue with the freedom fighters.
   When the Soviet Union crushed the 1956 Revolution, Mr. Vasarhelyi 
was one of the senior government officials who with Nagy accepted an 
offer of asylum at the Yugoslav embassy. They left the embassy under a 
guarantee of safety by the Hungarian government, but he and the others 
were immediately seized by Soviet troops and taken to Romania. In a 
secret trial he was given a five-year prison term, and he remained in 
prison until an amnesty in 1960.
   In the 1970s and 1980s, Miklos Vasarhelyi continued the struggle 
against repression. Combining courage and personal charm, and 
maintaining a unique sense of optimism about the future, he was a 
leader of the democratic opposition that brought immense changes in 
1989.
   In the late 1980s, Mr. Vasarhelyi was the founder of the Hungarian 
Open Society Foundation. He was one of the leaders who laid the 
groundwork for a vibrant civic society in his country.
   He not only worked through the Open Society Foundation in Hungary, 
but he became one of the leading figures in the democratic opposition 
that began to emerge in the late 1980s. In 1990, a grateful nation 
elected him to serve in Hungary's free parliament as a reprsesentative 
of the Association of Free Democrats.
   I am pleased to add that Mr. Vasarhelyi was not only a genuine 
democrat but also a true friend of the United States and of Hungarian-
American cooperation.
   Mr. Speaker, I welcome the commemorative event that is taking place 
on October 14 at the house in Rijeka/Fiume where Miklos Vasarhelyi was 
born. I invite my colleagues to join me in commending his family, 
friends, and colleagues to celebrate the memory of this quiet, 
persistent, and effective man who kept faith with his ideals under the 
most difficult of circumstances.

                          ____________________