Slight Additional Delay in Senate Action on NATO Expansion Avoids Appearance of U.S. Support for Hungary’s Communists

(Washington, D.C.): There is a compelling reason to delay until after 10 May the Senate’s
expected advice-and-consent to NATO’s expansion: On that day, Hungary will be holding
national elections. At issue is whether the coalition led by
Communists-turned-“Socialists”
that now misrules this candidate for NATO membership will get a new electoral lease on
life.

Importantly, Hungary’s “Socialists” are already trying to parlay the anticipated U.S. approval
of
Hungary’s admission to the Atlantic Alliance into popular support. The Senate should
not allow
its deliberations to translate into interference in the domestic affairs of a tenuously
democratic state — especially since the result may be to introduce a “Trojan Horse” into the
West’s preeminent collective defense mechanism.

The U.S. as the Communists’ Electoral Ace in the Hole

Senators should be mindful of the fact that the governing Hungarian coalition has not been
able to
keep its election promises of 1994 — namely, to improve the life of its citizens. To the contrary,
the standard of living has dropped and the economic difficulties are such that there is a growing
dissatisfaction with the renamed Communists and their leftist Free Democrat partners.

The ruling coalition has, therefore, come increasingly to emphasize their successes in
international
affairs as justification for a new mandate. In particular, Prime Minister Gyula
Horn — a life-long Communist who took up arms against his own people to assist
Soviet invaders in crushing
Hungarian freedom fighters in 1956 — is making much of the NATO enlargement vote in his
campaign for reelection.

For example, on 29 March, government-controlled radio broadcasts reported that, “Four
years
ago the Socialist Party pledged to raise the country to the group of developed nations. Now we
are on the doorstep of NATO and the EU, Gyula Horn said at the Party’s Budapest election
campaign opening rally. There are no alternatives to this policy and to the Hungarian Socialist
Party, he added.”⁽¹⁾

A few weeks earlier, at the Fifth Congress of the Hungarian Socialist Party Congress on 7
March,
“Gyula Horn rated as successful the government’s four years in office, saying it had made it
possible for the country to join NATO and the EU. This was achieved together with the [junior
coalition partner] the Alliance of Free Democrats”⁽²⁾

The Communist-led coalition is trying to parlay the fact that the Senate is currently expected
to
approve ratification of the NATO Expansion Agreement before the 10 May balloting
as proof that
the U.S. supports the coalition. The implication (at least) is that, thanks to this preference, the
“Socialists” will be best positioned to elicit financial aid and other types of assistance from the
Americans after the vote, enabling the fulfillment of as-yet-unfulfilled pledges by the Communists
to improve the economy and lives of the Hungarian people.

As long as the Senate appears to be lending credence to these claims — which are dutifully
promoted by Hungarian media that are overwhelming controlled by the former Communists and
their collaborators — there is a significant danger that the latter will once again secure an electoral
victory. For one thing, the appearance of U.S. support for a government run by leaders of the
ancien regime is demoralizing many voters who oppose them. They reason that if
even the
United States is favoring the former Communists and their allies, then the people of Hungary have
little chance of displacing them at the polls. Naturally, the coalition parties are also exploiting the
appearance of American support to invigorate and mobilize their former and present party
members and to appeal to undecided voters.

There is, of course, a further reason to discourage such perceptions: As the Center for
Security
Policy’s director, Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., argues in his column in this week’s Defense News
(see the
attached), there are some distinct down-side risks for NATO should Communists
who have
spent their lives combating the Atlantic Alliance be granted access to its secrets, war plans,
technologies and councils. As Mr. Gaffney concluded:

“The Atlantic Alliance has long asserted that only governments that met certain criteria
would be eligible for admission as members. It seems a minimal requirement would be
that candidate nations not pose a threat to the robustness and security of this important
defensive alliance. By most reasonable standards, though, it would appear that the
present government of Hungary fails to meet this test. As a result, a vote on including
Hungary in NATO should be postponed until after scheduled elections in May
establish whether and to what degree the Hungarian will be represented by a
government that will prove an asset to the Atlantic Alliance, not a potentially
serious liability.“

The Bottom Line

This argument is all the more compelling if, by the very fact of its consideration of NATO
enlargement prior to 10 May, the United States Senate were — however unintentionally — to
increase the chances that such a liability for the Atlantic Alliance would emerge by helping the
Communists renew their hold on power in Hungary.

Majority Leader Trent Lott, who has already put off the vote until the
latter part of April,
would be well-advised to delay it until the middle of May and thus deny the
Hungarian
Communists the opportunity to use such a vote to accomplish election results that are neither in
the interest of the people of Hungary nor those of the rest of the Atlantic Alliance.

– 30 –

1. Hungarian Radio broadcast entitled, “Premier Outlines Socialists’
Election Program,” aired at
2000 GMT on 29 March 1998. The translation was distributed by the BBC Summary of World
Broadcasts.

2. Hungarian Radio broadcast entitled, “Premier Hails Achievements,
Coalition Partner,” aired at
1100 GMT on 7 March 1998. This translation was also distributed by the BBC Summary of
World Broadcasts.