Westpolitik - Hungary

BUDAPEST The recent visit of Margaret Thatcher, the first ever to Hungary by a British prime minister, following that of Vice President Bush last fall, has brought new expectations to the leading "independent" of the Soviet bloc. Not that the Hungarians want their own liberal economic policies and relative prosperity to be contrasted too publicly with conditions in other Eastern satellites.

They know better than to boast of their lot. The Hungarian Communist boss, Janos Kadar, is still the same man who was installed as the Soviet puppet after the tragic uprising in Budapest was crushed by Red Army tanks almost thirty years ago. But, as Western visitors to Budapest know, Hungary has at least part of one foot in the Western economic camp. It joined the IMF recently, for example, and Hungarian tourists are now able to spend hard currency when they travel in Western Europe. Chancellor Helmut Kohl of West Germany, Hungary's number-one Western trading partner, will also be paying a visit to Budapest this year. So will the prime ministers of Italy, Belgium, Sweden, and Norway. None of them is going to suggest any changes in Hungarian foreign policy or in the country's military line-up or anything else that would upset Moscow. The fact that everyone knows this is considered significant enough all by itself.

COPYRIGHT 1984 National Review, Inc.
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