How Fears of Espionage Created Untenable US-Hungarian Relations

Lucille Vogeler, wife of Robert Vogeler, meeting with American Secretary of State Dean Acheson in the American Embassy, Grosveenor Square, London on May 12,1950. They discussed what steps might be taken to secure the release of her husband, who was serving a 15-year sentence for alleged espionage by a Hungarian Court. Smith Archive / Alamy Stock Photo

On the morning of Nov. 19, 1951, a Douglas C-47 Skytrain took off from Erding Air Base near Munich. Its destination was Belgrade, Yugoslavia. The plane never arrived.

The Cold War between Western democracies and the Soviet Union practically began the moment Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945. The former allies were now bitter enemies, and espionage became the primary means of conflict and conflict resolution. The mere suspicion of spying was often tantamount to the act itself, and these opposing governments often acted on suspicions alone.

Exactly two years prior to that fateful flight in November, Hungarian communist authorities in Budapest arrested Robert Vogeler, an American businessman and assistant vice president of Standard Electric, the European subsidiary of International Telephone & Telegraph (ITT); Edgar Sanders, a British businessman and the company’s comptroller; and four Hungarians, who were employees of Standard Electric. In February of the following year, after imprisonment and torture, they were brought before a tribunal on allegations of espionage.

The Hungarian government refused to allow legal representation for Vogeler and Sanders. By the end of the “show trial,” each confessed to the crime of spying. Vogeler was sentenced to 15 years hard labor; Sanders, 13 years; and two of the four Hungarians, Imre Geiger and Zoltan Rado, were sentenced to death.

The U.S. State Department decried the trial, claiming it was ​​“devoid of justice, inadequate as to evidence, and replete with falsehoods.” In response to the verdict, the federal government closed the two Hungarian consulates in New York and Cleveland, and banned travel to Hungary.

A Pretext for Ransom

General Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party, Matyas Rakosi (front row, 1st right), applauds merging the Social Democrats with the Communists, forming the Hungarian Working People's Party (MDP) in March 1948. Archive Photos/Getty Images

The Hungarian government led by Matyas Rakosi ignored the State Department. Standard Electric, established in Hungary in 1928, now joined the many foreign businesses the communists nationalized. Rakosi had resisted nationalization of Standard Electric in hopes of a new trade deal.

According to Hungarian professor and historian Gabor Batonyi, “The Standard Electric Company was only seized when the Americans began to quibble about licences, drastically restricting the scope and prospect of large-scale technological transfer. The frustration of the Hungarian Communists was brutally apparent: one of the two Hungarian defendants sentenced to death was their own chief negotiator, a middle-ranking official, Zoltan Rado.”

The Hungarians made numerous ransom demands for Vogeler’s release, including the 1,000-year-old crown of St. Stephen, the founding monarch of Hungary. It had been taken by a member of the Hungarian honor guard and sent to American to protect it from the Nazis and Soviets. By the end of April 1951, after 17 months in a Hungarian prison (and several million dollars paid by the United States), Vogeler was finally released.

The State Department had worked feverishly to return Vogeler stateside. But it was Vogeler’s wife Lucile, who was truly tireless in her efforts to free her husband. She was in consistent contact with the Truman administration, especially Secretary of State Dean Acheson. She had even contacted members of the “Communist underworld,” promising to raise $500,000 in payment if they could secure his release.

When Vogeler returned to America, he displayed his appreciation for his wife’s and the State Department’s efforts. His appreciation was probably bolstered by the fact that Sanders was still in prison and would be until August 1953.

A Call for a Stronger Stance

When Vogeler gave a speech before the National Press Club to discuss his ordeal, he detailed the torture he endured, explaining that was the reason he “signed the rubbish.” He noted that there “comes a time a person is faced with the utter futility of not complying with demands.”

Soon, Vogeler became a critic of the Truman administration, suggesting it be firmer with the Soviet Union and its communist satellite states. He believed the containment doctrine was not enough. He dictated the story of his arrest, torture, trial, conviction, imprisonment, release, and new perspective on the United States-Soviet Cold War conflict to journalist Leigh White. The story was serialized in the Saturday Evening Post from Oct. 27 to Dec. 1, 1951. NBC broadcast the story on Dec. 23 with the title “I Was Stalin’s Prisoner.” The story was published in book form the following year.

"I Was Stalin's Prisoner" by Robert Vogeler with journalist Leigh White recounts the former's experiences as a prisoner of the communists.

Vogeler also sued ITT for $500,000 for not warning him about the dangers of a failed negotiation with the Hungarian government.

New Low, Old Suspicions

According to the State Department, relations between the United States and Hungary were “at an all-time low.” The Vogeler affair was not the only example of this low ebb in diplomatic relations. During the summer of 1951, a month after Vogeler had returned to America, the Hungarian government accused America of using the U.S. Legation in Budapest as a “spy center,” and named Second Secretary of Legation Albert W. Sherer and Legation Attaché Ruth Tryon personae non gratae. Suspicion of espionage was enough to demand the two leave the country within 24 hours. Mary Eich, a clerk for the American Legation, who was not in Budapest at the time, was barred from reentry into Hungary.

According to claims made by renowned journalist Drew Pearson during his December 1951 radio broadcast, approximately “6,000 Americans were being held against their will behind the Iron Curtain.” Comparatively, it seems that Sherer, Tryon, and Eich, though none were actually spies, had gotten off easy.

He claimed during one of his radio broadcasts in December 1951 that approximately “6,000 Americans were being held against their will behind the Iron Curtain.”

Espionage had become part and parcel of the Cold War, and the fear that spies had infiltrated everywhere behind the Soviet Union’s Iron Curtain was only increased with the passage of the Mutual Security Act of 1951 (MSA). President Harry S. Truman signed it into law on Oct. 10. After signing, Truman stated, “There is some misapprehension that the free world is embarked on nothing but an armaments race with the Soviet Empire. This is not the case. What the free world is actually doing is to unleash the constructive forces of human freedom.”

President Truman at his desk in the Oval Office addressing the nation on Nov. 7, 1951. National Archives and Records Administration. Public Domain

This claim no doubt landed on deaf ears within the Soviet Union. The claim seemed even less convincing considering the MSA provided “a sum not to exceed $100,000,000 of the military allocation [to] be used for any selected persons who are residing in or escapees from the USSR or the satellites … either to bring such persons into elements of the military forces of NATO or for other purposes determined by the President as useful to the defense of the North Atlantic area and the security of the US.”

With diplomatic relations with Hungary already at “an all-time low,” the MSA only worsened relations. The Soviet world was on high alert for any false moves by the Americans. They found one on Nov. 19, 1951, shortly after the C-47 Skytrain left Erding.

‘Diplomatic TNT’

The transport plane had four crew members: pilot Capt. David Henderson, co-pilot Capt. John Swift, mechanic Tech. Sgt. Jess Duff, and radioman Sgt. James Elam. The plane reported to be on schedule while over the Yugoslavian city of Zagreb (now the capital of Croatia). The plane, however, was actually near the city of Varazdin, about 40 miles north of Zagreb near the Hungarian border. The miscalculation proved costly.

Soviet fighters soared toward the C-47 and forced it to land in Papa, Hungary. The four were arrested by the Soviets and held in solitary confinement until they were released to the Hungarians, where they continued in said confinement.

For approximately two weeks, the fate of the plane and its crew members were unknown, as the Soviets remained silent. It was not until early December when a Moscow radio broadcast announced the C-47 had been forced down. According to one news report, “the men had become diplomatic TNT, warranting careful handling to keep from adding more explosiveness to public and official indignation in the United States.”

The accusations by the Hungarians were that the Americans had sent the C-47 to parachute “spies and diversionists” into the country, which Acheson noted in a memo to the Legation in Hungary “were never on the plane and exist only in the imagination of the Hung[arian] auth[oritie]s.” A week later, Acheson signed off on a top secret memo to the Embassy in the Soviet Union, informing the Soviet leadership that “If four innocent USAF flyers should, in fact, be brought to trial, Amer[ican] people will be incensed and their reaction will be literally incalculable.”

‘The Truth Comes Out’

The four men were brought to trial, but it seems the Americans had made their case clear, or perhaps, as Acheson had requested, the Soviets had used their “influence to bring about early release of the flyers.” The Hungarian government dispensed with the espionage charge and charged the Americans with “intentional violation of Hungarian territory.” The fine for their release was $120,000.

The media and members of Congress called it “ransom” and “blackmail.” Sen. Herbert O’Conor, of Maryland, said, “It is wrong in principle to reward the Communists with American dollars for their illegal detention and imprisonment of the aviators.”

It was during this week in history, on Dec. 28, 1951, that after 40 days, the four Americans were released ending another diplomatic standoff and an abysmal year in American-Hungarian relations. Although the Hungarian communist government called the sentence a “fine,” one American news reporter in Budapest got the opportunity to write a semblance of the truth.

Andrew Tully, who had made his name by being one of the few reporters to follow the Soviets into Berlin in April 1945, met with “Mme. Szucs … press attache at the Hungarian legation.” Tully recalled her telling him “the men would be freed ‘when your government pays the —uh …’ ‘Ransom?’ I suggested. ‘Ah, yes—when your government pays the ransom.’... For a diplomat this was kind of a bad slip because … the Communist regime in Hungary has always insisted the $120,000 it demanded … represented fines for being ‘spies.’ But that’s the way it is—catch somebody off guard and the truth comes out. … It was nice to know, though, that somebody in the Hungarian government was calling that $120,000 bite by its right name.”

Never miss a This Week in History story! Sign up for the American History newsletter here.

What arts and culture topics would you like us to cover? Please email ideas or feedback to [email protected]