"Mr. Prime Minister"

October 17, 2005

Dear Mr. Prime Minister:

It was an unusual experience for me in the Yale Club to have met you finally in person and see the excellent individuals that you have assembled in your Cabinet.

I would like to refer to you an article that I wrote called, "Cellular Diplomacy." It has been my privilege to know Ambassador András Simonyi for two years and His Excellency Ambassador George Walker III for about ten years.

Hungary couldn't have had a better back-up people and, if I may say so, highly intelligent and creative people. In other articles, I have stated that President Bush did not send his cousin, Ambassador Walker to Hungary, to survey the Lake Balaton. He obviously had in mind the rejuvenation and the advancement of Hungary in his general policy of having Eastern Europe as a strong base for America as an ally.

Let me now turn to a subject which I developed in seeing you.

For better or worse, I reckoned and I heard and I observed you are a very capable young man, well versed in the world of finance and developing your contacts in international politics. There is a solid and historic family behind you. Being constructive and forward looking, you are already a good candidate to be a historically known prime minister.

Before the last Presidential election (2004) in America, Theodore Sorensen who was speech writer for President Kennedy said, "America needs another John F. Kennedy."

While I am a strong Republican with the privilege of having had some working contact with President Nixon and eight years with the late Governor John B. Connolly of Texas, I understood the historical meaning of the prediction. However, hopefully, President Bush's real future is to be another Bismarck.

It is ironic that today near the end of 2005, America has a problem that perhaps only a Bismarckian philosophy could shoulder. At the same time, Hungary has unusual opportunities.

The little states around Hungary (and there are about ten of them) have the same aspiration as the country you lead. These are small states, basically created by the former French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, which now want to play a role in the European Union and in NATO.

These states need a spokesman. These states, including Hungary, need a forceful leader. Mr. Prime Minister, John F. Kennedy became President when America was at its height. His objective was to lead the country to be a super power in a peaceful world. He did not tolerate the missile gap. He was extremely interested in African affairs and some twenty African heads-of-state visited the White House in 1961. He started the Alliance of Progress in South America.

Hungary also has an agenda. It wants, obviously, prosperity. But in terms of foreign policy, it probably has to exert a leadership, which only you can provide, to present to the world that Eastern Europe after the last hundred years is not dead, but alive. Geographically, Eastern Europe is between East and West. In the past, that is why the ten nations including Hungary were losers. Today there is no military danger, but there is an historical danger of being passive and being satisfied that the stockmarket in 2005 has the highest rating in Budapest.

You have an historical duty to represent in foreign policy a new Eastern European hegemony.

Hungary provided some remarkable people. Most of them lived in America. I remember meeting several times the late L. Zilahi in New York City. He saw me because I was related to the late Bajor Gigi. We became friends. One of the sources of his unhappiness was that his book, "The Ket Fogoly," was infinitely better than "All Quiet on the Western Front" and it was not even mentioned in world literature because he was Hungarian.

Add up the intellectual resources of these ten nations: Poland, Ukraine, Belorussia, Yugoslavia, the three Baltic states. Individually, they are nothing more than the sideline beneficiary of the ending of the Cold War.

Fifteen years has passed and the next fifteen years are coming. These nations need a political leader, a political spokesman to explain to the world the intellectual resources and combined monetary strength as well. An Eastern European bloc surely can compete with a group of Far Eastern countries, excluding China and Japan. An Eastern European bloc can play a serious role in the European chancellories and eventually could represent greater economic power than Germany.

A hundred years ago, a German Kaiser decided what would happen with the Hapsburg-Hungarian monarchy. You have to reverse this trend. You have the resources. You have the platform. And the world is very positively inclined to see what has come out of the destruction of the Yalta Agreement. Today the world is Yalta, not Versailles, not Trianon. The nationalistic Trianon policies are dead.

If you travel around the world, as you do, and present with pride what we can achieve jointly, Theodore Sorensen may modify his words and one day he will say, "What Eastern European nations (representing well over 100 million people) need a John F. Kennedy and in you, Mr. Prime Minster, may be the modern version of a John F. Kennedy."

I wish I could convince you that since I left Hungary in 1956, I have never heard any derogatory remarks about Hungary, nor have I heard anything derogatory about Poland and Czechoslovakia. By coincidence or planning, by age, and by purpose, traveling between New York, Paris, Beijing and London, you could represent that a new star is born in Eastern Europe.

A five percent increase in international trade, a ten percent increase in foreign banking deposits, and a fifteen percent increase in foreign capital investments in the Eastern European states could bring about a 50% increase in the standard of living of a 100 million people. This is your platform, Mr. Prime Minister. This is your platform for next year during the elections.

Hungary would recognize the work that you are doing and undoubtedly will give you a platform to continue the leadership that I think you can exert and the direction hopefully you will be taking.

History sometimes calls for historical foresight.

The United States had in Palo Alto a Hungarian, a professor who constantly lost money on the stockmarket. I got to know him. His name was Professor Edward Teller. He was a friend of every President and one of the most creative brains the world has ever seen.

He lived in a very simple house, married to Mici for over 50 years. He used to wake her up to make coffee in the morning. But when the chips were down, apart from his many accomplishments, he devised the Star Wars and, as Ambassador Simonyi once summarized it, the 90-year-old Professor has single-handedly overthrown Communism.

If this is true, Mr. Prime Minister, then you really must accept the role I have outlined. Nobody has done more for Hungary and the world than Professor Teller.

Coincidentally, he made you Prime Minister for Hungary in the best of times. But if he made you Prime Minister, if he would be alive and if he would comment on you, he would probably proudly point at you as a politician and say, "I single-handedly created the historical circumstances for the Hungarian Prime Minister to play the most important international role for the last hundred years."

Professor Teller was a very well meaning person. And I am sure he would have made himself available to you like he made himself available to John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and particularly to Ronald Reagan. I really trust that after the next election and for a few years afterwards, he would tell Mici at night, "I finally found what Hungary needs and what Hungary will need for the next twenty years."

(Article 10- posted October 19, 2005)

e-mail: mlikar@aol.com

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