Touching Base: Hungarian Intelligence and the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in the 1960s

Abstract

This article deals with a neglected dimension of Cold War history, namely the role of minor Communist secret services in subverting cultural relations with Britain. In particular, the article examines the efforts of Hungarian State Security to penetrate a university centre in London during the 1960s. Drawing on hitherto unexplored archival material, it documents the intensive attempts made to monitor or cultivate individuals at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies — notably the historian Dr László Péter — as part of a wide-ranging and ambitious intelligence offensive on the tenth anniversary of the 1956 Revolution. Paradoxically, this heightened espionage activity took place at a time of enhanced bilateral ties. The historical records analysed here provide new insight into the duplicity of Hungary’s foreign policy, and the hypocrisy of the post-revolutionary regime’s cultural ‘opening’ to the West, during a defining decade.