On November 19, 2009, conference participants gathered in a featureless office building in a suburb outside Washington DC. There was no sign outside the building. People appearing in the hallway included political scientist Charles Gati and retired blogger Eva S. Balogh (deceased in 2021), former dean of a Yale University college. (Their attendance is also confirmed by saved email messages.) Central Europe was the theme of the one-day symposium, and in the top two corners of the printed program the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the US State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research were named as organizers. (Gati's wife, Toby Gati, headed the latter during the Clinton administration in the 1990s.)
At the conference, the situation in Hungary was also discussed, in the context that Fidesz will come to government in 2010, which was obvious to everyone. They looked at the policies of Jobbik and Fidesz, as well as the financing background of the former. By this time, Americans already started to worry about the rise of both parties, albeit for different reasons.
While maintaining our long-standing policy of not associating with Jobbik, we will be watching closely as the European Parliament election campaign continues to unfold in the spring
as reported to Washington in a classified cable on February 2, 2009 by then US Ambassador in Budapest April Foley, who also sketched a portrait of Jobbik chief Gabor Vona for the Washington officials. There was no talk of a "second reform era" at the time. (What a long way to go from the US perception of Jobbik at the time to the invitation of current Jobbik chief Marton Gyongyosi to Seder dinner at the US ambassador's residence in Budapest! Jobbik is no longer seen as a dangerous factor, but as a bunch of useful idiots squeezed in between leftist-liberal opposition politicians.) Jobbik was also mentioned in a later cable in which Charge d'Affaires/Deputy Chief of Mission Jeffrey Levine proposed agenda points for then-Vice President Joe Biden for his White House meeting with then-Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai on December 4, 2009.
Of course, they were and still are more perturbed by Fidesz.
As a critic of the United States and some EU leaders, Orban has given the impression of a leader with enough political and social support not to worry too much about sophistication and feigned loyalty to the international community
Levine wrote, with striking sobriety, in a cable sent to his bosses at home on June 16, 2009 (the twentieth anniversary of the reburial Imre Nagy and his associates). No preaching, no gibberish about democracy in the cable, for it was not intended for the media. Their main problem with Viktor Orban has remained the same: he does not obey. The deputy chief of mission also asked the State Department to forward the cable to Jeff Hovenier, a national security council official. Hovenier also worked in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the co-organizer of the aforementioned "CIA conference".
It is only worth recalling these old things now so that we can better understand what it means when - as Magyar Nemzet recently reported -
Robert Kennedy Jr, nephew of JFK, a Democratic (rather unlikely) presidential candidate, has spoken of the United States openly interfering in the public life of other countries, and of the CIA paying foreign journalists through the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Former CIA analyst Larry Johnson added that in last year's Hungarian elections, not only the CIA but also the US State Department made efforts to bring down the Orban government.
Reading comments posted on the internet shows that some people think that it is an exaggeration or conspiracy theory that a big agency like the CIA would engage in dealing with a small country like Hungary. Of course, the "firm" employing tens of thousands of people has its global tasks, and Hungary probably receives only a small but all the more important share of the attention, which is not in direct proportion to the size of the country (since Orban's example can be contagious elsewhere). In any case, organizations of this and that kind nicely divide "tasks of influencing" among themselves so that they remain as inconspicuous as possible – even if their part ultimately becomes evident.
The rolling dollars that go the Hungary's opposition are just the tip of the iceberg. It is about broader attempts to influence society and the media. CIA, State Department, USAID, Soros or Action for Democracy (A4D) – from our point of view, it does not matter whose budget includes the funds and how the tasks are divided in America.
(There have been rumors that not all the money coming from George Soros belongs to him, some US government funds may also flow in with it.) In all such cases, it is about gaining influence.
However, it is not 1945, in some fictitious US occupation zone, and it is no longer a necessity to hand over bundles of dollars in briefcases at a party headquarters in Budapest. More sophisticated solutions are being sought. Over the past year, US Ambassador David Pressman's most important guest so far has been his former boss, USAID Administrator Samantha Power. She paid a visit with a focus on "civil society" and "democracy". In other words, with the aim of strengthening social groups and the media behind the opposition.
As announced on its website, opposition Telex news portal will receive nearly 800 thousand US dollars to run their "academy" from the American Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL). This is a bureau withing the US State Department. Power's (nomen est omen) trip to Budapest casts bizarre light on Ronald Reagan's formulation: "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the [US] government and I’m here to help.'"
The A4D, run by David Koranyi and heavily involved in the party financing scandal in Hungary, stresses that it does not support parties not does it use government money. Now, for example, A4D claims that they support projects such as the new children's magazine launched by journalist Arpad W Tota. However, we just don't believe in bedtime stories. A4D's advisory board includes the likes of "conference participant" Charles Gati, television personality and columnist Kati Marton alongside the widow of Democratic star diplomat Richard Holbrooke or Barack Obama's Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and national security advisor Evelyn Farkas (so many Hungarian names!)
For a change, A4D is now seeking to topple Poland's current government in the upcoming elections in October. In the name of democracy, of course: we're here for you, Poles, not against you!
"Agents" don't necessarily have to be the kind we see in spy movies, although life does create amusing situations from time to time. In 2008, I smiled indulgently at a family member's suggestion that one of our lunch guests in Washington (brought by an acquaintance as an acquaintance) was perhaps a secret agent. "He's so athletic," the relative added by way of explanation. Our guest is now a media personality as a former national security officer. Anyone who has spent a longer spell in a diplomatic post may have come across people who are not in the habit of introducing themselves, or at least fail to tell the whole truth. Such one-sided acquaintances are operational contacts. An acquaintance in Washington sounded the alarm when he realized that he was in fact being used to organize a student network for who knows what hidden purpose.
The Biden administration sees it as a dangerous precedent abroad that Hungarian voters repeatedly vote in favor of the sovereignist Orban government. This is in violation of European interests. The current US administration wants to see the two million voters supporting the leftist-liberal opposition not only grow bigger but also more cohesive by 2026 through strengthening groups and media closely linked to the opposition.
Among the hard-working designers of this kind of "democracy-building", there may be some who may not have thirty-two names, as illegal communist activist Endre Sagvari once had, but they do have more than just one.
Cover photo: US Ambassador to Budapest David Pressman at the 28th Budapest Pride (Photo: Miklos Teknos)
