Book Description

Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty (1892 1975) was in 1956 71 "guest" of the American Embassy in Budapest, Hungary. During these 15 years he wrote a great number of letters and messages transmitted through diplomatic channels to four US Presidents and their Secretaries of State. There are only two Presidential answers: from Kennedy and from Nixon. In general, the Department of State instructed the Chargé in Budapest to inform the Cardinal orally: his message has been received in the White House/State Department. This correspondence in his integrity remained buried in 5 archives. This book is offered for all those willing to learn the various problems of Cold War and detente periode, American diplomacy and the thinking of the great cardinal, in his generation hero of freedom for the Hungarians and for the World. * From the letters of the Cardinal: The Treaty of Versailles-"Trianon has dismembered us, and Yalta has created a Soviet satellite out of us." (October 23, 1957) "The moral qualifications leave the sinful-livers and blood-wallowers cold." (November 8, 1957) "Today nothing is more important (and perhaps it is not too late) for mankind, than that its leaders and the led should learn what bolshevism is in the way that we its poor, wretched satellites have experienced in body and soul. This great lesson can equal the Declaration of Independence in its effect." (June 23, 1960) "This peace [i.e., the peace of Central Europe] has been the peace of the graveyard; only those who are not imprisoned can be satisfied with a jail." (August 10, 1961) " illegality never can become legality, as the injustice justice." (March 13, 1964) * Rev. Adam Somorjai, OSB (b. 1952), a Hungarian Benedictine living in Rome (Italy) worked in various Church Offices, editor of the correspondence of Cardinal Mindszenty with the Popes and Cardinal Secretaries of State of the Vatican. Prof. Tibor Zinner (b. 1948), legal historian, university professor in Budapest, Hungary's best-known expert on 20th-century political trials, author of numerous publications, e.g. on Imre Nagy and László Rajk.