CALCULATED CLEMENCY
A Correspondent writes : T" 'interruption' of Cardinal Mindszenty's life sentence announced by the Hungarian government has followed one or two other recent acts of comparative huManity on the part of Communist rulers, such as the granting, in isola,ted cases and with obvious reluctance, of their normal human rights to British wives. But at the same time there has been a startling wave of deportations and arrests in Hungary. And a show trial directed against the West appears to be in preparation; for Hungarian 'correspondents of American news agencies and Hungarian employees of the American Legation have been the objects, not of the more usual disappearance without comment, but of a government communiqué announcing their guilt as foreign agents. Nothing, at this level, happens accidentally in the satellites. The transfer of Cardinal Mindszenty to a 'designated place of residence' and the release of Mrs. Sispera were certainly connected in the minds of the Communist rulers with prepara- tion for the Four-Power talks. And the arrests must have been too. At the same time the third in a series of trials of `right-wing. nationalist' Communist leaders who have been imprisoned since 1948-49, has taken place in Warsaw. Can it all signify that, if concessions have to be made, the Party's grip is being tightened to ensure that they lead to nothing further? That is, indeed, negotiation from strength—the strength of the MVD.
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