Abstract
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 remains one of the most thoroughly researched areas of Hungarian history. However, the Romanian involvement in, and responses to, the events in Budapest have received far less scholarly attention. Secondary sources have tended to focus either on the Romanian communist party leadership and its role in incarcerating the Imre Nagy group, or on the revolution’s impact on the Hungarian minority in Romania. However, this article investigates the perceptions and performance of the Romanian diplomats and intelligence officers stationed in Budapest during the uprising. Foreign ministry telegrams reveal the extensive misperceptions of, and logistical difficulties faced by, the diplomats, especially Ambassador Ion Popescu. The diplomats inflated the Hungarian dictator Mátyás Rákosi’s alleged popularity, blamed the situation on imperialist plotters outside Hungary, underrated the dissent of Hungarian workers and intellectuals, and exaggerated the threat of Transylvanian irredentism. The exiguous, biased reports from the Budapest embassy, among other factors, arguably propelled the Bucharest leaders to take an active stance in containing the “counterrevolution” on their western border.
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