HUNGARY
SIR,-1 have just returned from Budapest and am horrified by the complacency with which our country views its failure to help the Hun- garians in their fight for liberty.
They looked upon us to help them. When Mr. Imre Nagy announced his country's neutrality the Hungarians expected that the West would guarantee it. The Hungarians put their faith in Britain. They were mistaken.
Again and again I was asked in Budapest when England would send help; everyone, the young university students, the armed factory workers, the women queueing hopelessly for bread, believed right up until the last moment that help would come. Perhaps not armed intervention, but at any rate anti-tank weapons and ammunition.
We failed the Hungarian people, and all the splendid work that is being done, and which must be done, to help the refugees cannot exonerate us. In the eyes of the world our country, which has mustered enough bluster- ing courage to attack a nation smaller and weaker than herself, has failed miserably to help another small nation throw off an oppressor. We have good cause to be ashamed of ourselves.
I hope Mr. Toynbee's idea will not be taken too seriously. The Hungarians do not want moral support. Since they cannot have arms to fight with, they want all that we can give in the way of medicines, food and clothing. There is nothing to be gained by sending hun- dreds of young people into a country where there is already insufficient food, unless the 'pilgrims' are to go armed and ready to fight. Hungary needs help, not gestures.—Yours faithfully,
Previous page
