Hungarian Embassy in Havana (Beck), Report on Conversation with Cuban Foreign Ministry Official on Hungarian-Cuban Relations and Sino-Soviet Split

TOP   SECRET!

Written: in four copies

three to Center

one to Embassy

The Embassy of the Hungarian People’s Republic

131/1963/top secret

Official: Erzsébet Görög

Typed by: Vajdáné

Havana, 12 March 1963

Subject: The opinion of the head of the III. Political Department of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs /Socialist countries/ about the Cuban-Hungarian relations and the Soviet-Chinese dispute.

On 6 March, Comrades Görög and Sütő invited to a dinner the head of the Third Political Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador [José] Fuxa and the official in charge of Hungarian matters, Siomara Sánchez.

Comrade Görög asked Ambassador Fuxa if they were satisfied with the Cuban-Hungarian relations.

Ambassador Fuxa thought that the relations between the two countries were very good. He could say so both on the basis of the reports received from their embassy to Budapest and on the basis of the friendly, good relations between the Hungarian embassy to Havana and the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He has heard very good opinions about the Hungarian party congress and he has issued the instruction to compile the materials referring to it as he wants to study them more closely.

He considered that the good relations between our countries were characterized by the friendly atmosphere in which the cultural talks had been carried out, by the useful exchanges of delegations of recent times, etc.

He mentioned that they were going to invite opera-singer András Varga, whose invitation was urged by Ambassador Quintin Pino Machado.

Siomara Sánchez, the official in charge of Hungarian matters, told frankly that when he was moved to the Hungarian department, he had not been very happy about it as he had known little of Hungary, he had considered it a not very relevant small socialist country. But after studying Hungarian matters more closely, he dealt with Hungary with enthusiasm and interest. Comrade [First Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party János] Kádár’s speeches, the Hungarian party congress had made him unbelievably enthusiastic, he wanted to learn Hungarian. /On the day following the dinner, Comrade Görög sent him a Hungarian-Spanish and a Spanish-Hungarian dictionary./

According to my instruction, Comrade Görög tried to get information about Ambassador Fuxa’s position concerning the Soviet-Chinese argument. Ambassador Fuxa—as the Cuban state and party functionaries usually—evaded taking a position, he only answered that the dispute was unfortunate, and he asked back whether she knew if there would be an inter-party meeting between the communist parties of the SU and China.

Otherwise, the dinner took place in a really friendly atmosphere, and even if it did not provide any genuine information, it served as a good starting-point for the creation of the possibility of further exchanges of opinion between the diplomats of the embassy and the competent officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

János Beck

ambassador

to Comrade Foreign Minister János Péter

Budapest