Speaking with Hungarian news agency MTI in Washington on Wednesday, 12 October, Minister of Defence István Simicskó emphasized that the message of courage and patriotism is an eternal message of 1956.
The Minister spoke with MTI on the occasion of his attending a daylong conference held at the US National Defense University on Wednesday with the title “1956 – The Freedom Fight that Changed the Cold War”.
In his opening speech at the conference, Mr. Simicskó emphasized that in 1956, the Hungarian nation launched a process, and although the revolution was crushed and retaliated, our nation eventually managed to achieve freedom and independence in 1989–90.
In his speech, he also underlined that in every age, there are people who are able to realize what is wrong, and also take action to remedy it. This was so in 1956 too, when “David fought Goliath”. As he noted, “In 1956, the people’s hearts and souls were moved.”
According to the minister, “the Hungarians who first courageously resisted and then were forced to flee their homeland were true refugees, and they did not immigrate to other countries for economic reasons, unlike many who do so nowadays.
At the conference co-organized by the Embassy of Hungary in Washington and the National Defense University, speeches were delivered on the memory and lessons of 1956. The speakers included prestigious Hungarian and American scholars, historians, military experts, journalists and members of the Hungarian communities in America. James Townsend, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense of the US Department of Defense also gave a lecture.
Mr. Simicskó told MTI that he got the impression that the American public still keeps the memory of 1956 alive. “The American people do not forget that back then, the Hungarian nation was the first to state, with incredible courage, that it had enough of that regime, that Soviet sphere of interest”.
The Minister of Defence also noted that some days earlier, at a 1956 commemoration held in the US Congress, two politicians, a Democrat congresswoman and a Republican congressman unanimously stated that the spirit of 1956 revived in 1990, and forms the foundation of Hungarian–American relations. “In this, the Hungarian communities living in America play a bridging role”, the minister pointed out.
On Tuesday, Mr. Simicskó visited Naval Station Norfolk, and on Wednesday afternoon he held discussions with Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work at the Pentagon, where he subsequently opened an exhibition on 1956. In this connection, he called the Hungarian–American military relations excellent.