HUNGARY: 25-Mile Limit

For the 16 U.S. diplomats and their 16 dependents, life in Budapest is grey enough. They are often followed; their employees are often questioned and jailed. The Communist regime in Hungary is angered at the U.S. for steadfastly refusing to appoint a minister to the puppet regime, for trying to unseat Hungary’s U.N. delegation following the 1956 revolt, and for giving continued asylum to Josef Cardinal Mindszenty in the U.S. legation in Budapest. Month ago the U.S. successfully led a fight to refuse to seat Hungarian delegates to an International Labor Organization meeting at Geneva. Last week the Reds’ anger spilled over. U.S. First Secretary James W. Pratt was summoned to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, presented with a note full of familiar trumped-up charges of U.S. espionage and subversion, told that henceforth the 32 Americans attached to the legation could not travel farther than 25 miles from Budapest without giving 48 hours’ advance notice. In retaliation, the U.S. imposed similar restrictions on Hungarian diplomats in Washington and New York.