Memes

So on the one hand, the CIA did some wicked awful shit all over the world, together with the rest of the US government apparatus. MK Ultra, the crack epidemic, all that shit.

That said, while I can imagine the CIA had some eyes on what was happening in Hungary, because both them and the Soviets had eyes everywhere, I don't see the point that is trying to be made here. That the CIA was funding the revolution? With what? It lasted like two weeks and the fighting was done with captured Soviet and older Hungarian and I guess some German equipment.

The revolution was not against communism, it was specifically against the fucked up economic policy of Rákosi, and not because he was a communist, but because he wanted to transition a country that was basically one contiguous agrarian farmland into heavy industry and steel manufacturing, which led to poverty as it was braindead. We didn't have the resources, the know-how or the demand. We did have it for agriculture. The revolution was aimed at installing Imre Nagy, the previous communist leader into power, who was originally a farmer, and had a strong agrarian policy.

The guy in question, Dr. Béla Király was indeed a high-ranking Hungarian military officer at the time. He was indeed appointed the commander of the revolutionary forces, and fled to the US after the defence collapsed.

That said, when would have he been enlisted by the CIA? He served in the armed forces on the Axis side as a captain - he earned recognition for disobeying orders and treating the Jewish prisoners assigned to him humanely. He fought until the USSR conquered Hungary, and surrendered to them. He was then absorbed into the People's Army and was not really trusted since his wife was the niece of Gyula Gömbös, a late fascist-aligned prime minister of Hungary. That said, he was promoted to general because there weren't a ton of capable and experienced officers back then in the army. Afterwards, when Stalin called off the invasion of Yugoslavia, he got purged with 350,000 other people in Hungary, and spent the rest of the time until the revolution in prison.

So was he enlisted by the CIA:

• as an unremarkable captain of an unremarkable country on the fascist side of WWII (why him?)
• as the commander of Hungary's contribution to the planned Yugoslavian invasion (the KGB and the ÁVO would have caught that)
• or as a prisoner in the ÁVO's dungeon (lol)

Even if he was enlisted by the CIA, how would have he planned or contributed to the revolution from the basement of Andrássy 62? He was released a month before as part of an attempt at appeasement to the masses and spent it in hospital because of undernourishment issues from the 5 years he spent there.

Or, as a much likelier explanation, after the revolution, as he escaped to the US as many others did as the US was open to dissidents at the time, he was employed as someone who actually fought the Soviets in guerrilla warfare, and was helping train anti-Castro forces?