BARMsColl/Nagy J / J 2 Nagy, Ferenc, 1903-1979. Papers, 1940-1979. 39 linear ft. (a.21,500 Items In 93 boxes & 7 overslded folders) Biography: Ferenc Nagy was a founder of the Hungarian Smallholders' Party, and Prime Minister of Hungary from 1946 until 1947 when he was forced to resign by the Communists. The rest of his life was spent In the United States where he was active as an author, lecturer and leader of Hungarian emigre political organizations. Arrangement: Cataloged correspondence. Box 1; Arranged Correspondence, Boxes 1-22; Arranged Lecture Correspondence, Boxes 23-35; Arranged Manuscripts. Boxes 36- 44; Subject Files, Boxes 45-74; Clippings, Boxes 75-80; Printed Materials, Boxes 81-93. Oversize Material: Subject Files; Clippings; Printed Materials. Summary: The Ferenc Nagy Papers consist of correspondence, manuscripts, subject files and printed materials relating to Nagy's career and family. The earliest materials cover the period 1945 to 1947 when Nagy was leader of the Hungarian Smallholders' Party, and later Prime Minister of Hungary. Of special interest are first-hand accounts and commentaries on the circumstances surrounding his resignation in 1947. Materials from the years 1948-1954 concern Nagy's leadership of emigre organizations Including the Hungarian National Council, the Committee for a Free Europe, the Assembly of Captive European Nations and the International Peasant Union. Correspondence files contain one letter each from presidents Harry S. Truman, Richard M. Nixon, and Jimmy Carter, also voluminous correspondence with Hungarian emigre politicians Pal Auer, Gyorgy Bessenyey, Bela Fabian, Pal Fabry, Karoly Peyer, Bela Varga and others. Nagy was much in demand as a public speaker and author and the Papers Include completed texts and drafts of many of his speeches and articles. In the early 1950s his writings focus on what he perceived as a worldwide Communist threat, but after several trips to Asia he increasingly turned his attention to the developing world and its peasant problems. Subject files document Nagy's trips to Asia (particularly India. Japan and Taiwan) and his participation In the 1955 Bandung Conference. In the early 1960s Nagy's Ivolvement with emigre politics decreased and he spent most of his time delivering lectures and commencement addresses at universities throughout the country.* This activity is recorded in files of lectures and correspondence with approximately 600 different Institutions. Languages: In Hungarian and English. Donor Gift of Laszlo Nagy, 1989. Finding Aids: Contents list. 31 p. Added Entries: 1. Carter, Jimmy, 1924- . 2. Ford. Gerald R, 1913- . 3. Harriman, W. Averell (William Averell), 1891-1896. 4. Hunphrey, Hubert H. (Hubert Horatio), 1911-1978. 5. Ulyes, Gyula, 1902- . 6. Jaszt Oszkar, 1875-1957. 7. Kethly, Anna. 8. Kovacs, Imre, 1913-1980. 9. Nixon. Richard M. (Richard Milhous). 1913- . 10. Reagan, Ronald. 11. Stevenson, Adlai E. (Adlai Ewing), 1900-1965. 12. Truman, Harry a, 1884-1972. 13. Varga. Bela. 14. Bognar, Jozsef. 15. Cslcsery-Ronay, Istvan. 16. Deak. Zoltan. 17. Dessewrry, Gyula. 18. Kiss, Sander, 1918- . 19. Kovacs, Bela. 20. Salata, Kalman. 21. Szocialdemokrata Part-(Hungary). 22. Magyar Szocialista Munkas Part. 23. Hungarian National Council. 24. ACEN (Organization). 25. Hungarians-United States. 26. Hungary-History«20th century. 27. Hungary—Politics and government—20th century. 28. Hungary- Emigration and immigration. ID: NYCR92-A0 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: FERENC NAGY Ferenc Nagy was born on 8 October 1903 in Bisse, a small village in the county of Baranya in Southeastern Hungary. His parents were Ferenc Nagy and Julianna Nagy. He married Julianna Balog on 2 4 January 1924. They had three children in Hungary, Ferenc Jr., born in 1925, Julianna, born in 1926, and Laszlo, born in 1942. They also had a set of twins after coming to the United States, Zsuzsanna and Zsofia, born in 1949. Except for the formal instruction he received in a one-room Presbyterian school, Nagy was self-educated and worked on his parents' land until 1932, when he began writing articles, first for provincial papers in the town of Pecs, and then for Pesti Hirlap in the capital. Nagy, along with Tildy, Varga, Sulyok and other peasant leaders, decided to form a peasant opposition party in 1930, the Independent Smallholders' Party, and Nagy was chosen the first National Secretary of the Party. He was personally responsible for organizing more than a thousand party cells at the village level, which greatly enhanced his popularity. In 1939 he was elected to Parliament. In 1940 he formed the semi-political Hungarian Peasant Association, a social, cultural and economic organization, and became its president in 1941. Because of a Smallholders' Party memorandum in 1943 calling for Hungary's withdrawal from the war the Gestapo imprisoned Nagy for six months when the Germans occupied the country in 1944. After the war Nagy set out to re-organize the party and became its National President. He also served as the President of the National Assembly, and in May 1945 he was appointed Minister of Reconstruction in the new Provisional Government. In the November 1945 elections the Smallholders' Party won a 57% majority of the votes, but the Soviet occupation authorities would'only allow a majority Smallholders' Party component in a coalition government which included the Communist Party as well as other smaller parties. The Republic was proclaimed in February 1946, the left-leaning Zoltan Tildy was elected its first President, and he in turn appointed Nagy Prime Minister after the candidacy of Dezso Sulyok, a leader of the right faction of the Smallholders' Party, was bitterly opposed by the Communists. As Prime Minister Nagy presided over a cabinet with a Smallholder majority, but in which the critically important posts of the Ministry of Interior and of the Security Police were held by communists. He tried to maneuver between the right wing of his own party, which demanded that he resist Communist Party pressure and intimidation, and leftist coalition partners, who threatened with labor unrest and mass demonstrations unless the Smallholders expelled their own right-leaning Parliamentary Deputies and government officials. Nagy ended up compromising with the Left, and in March 1946, at Tildy's insistence, Dezso Sulyok and his faction were expelled from the Party. The beginning of the erosion of support for the Smallholders and for Nagy among the masses of peasants can be traced to that decision. In the meantime, Nagy took part in the Paris Peace Conference, made official trips to Moscow, Washington, London and Paris, and met with Stalin, Truman, Atlee and Bideault, as well as with Eastern European leaders. His meeting with Stalin was probably most important, and while he found Stalin warm, friendly and generous (Stalin gave Nagy a ZIL limousine as a present), he only received vague assurances as to the future independence of Hungary and the stability of his government. By May of 1947 the Smallholder Party's hold over the rheins of power had become so tenuous that the secret arrest and kidnapping of Bela Kovacs, then the General Secretary of the Party, by Soviet authorities was met with protests but little action. At this crucial moment Nagy decided to take a vacation in Switzerland, and together with his wife he drove there for a two week stay. His daughter was studying at the University of Geneva at the time, and his son Ferenc was attache to the Embassy in Washington. While in Switzerland, the communists accused Nagy of complicity in the alleged plot involving Bela Kovacs to overthrow the Government. Advised to refrain from returning home, he agreed to sign his resignation in exchange for his son Laszlo, who was handed over to his parents at the border between Switzerland and Austria. Nagy arrived in the United States on 14 June 1947, and by 1948 he managed to buy a dairy farm in Herndon, Virginia, using as downpayment the honoraria he received for several articles in The Saturday Evening Post, Reader's Digest, and Life. His book, translated by Stephen Swift, The Struggle Behind the Iron Curtain was published by MacMillan in 1948. He soon ga've up farming, however, put his land in lease, and concentrated on emigre politics. He became Vice-President of the International Peasant Union in 1947, a member of the Executive Committee of the Hungarian National Council in 1948, Chairman of the Assembly of Captive European Nations from 1961 to 1962, member of the General Committees of that organization in 1963, and President of the International Peasant Union in 1964. He also founded the Central Eastern European Committee after the break-up of the Hungarian National Council in 1953. He made nearly fifty trips to Europe beginning in 1948, and participated in international conferences in Paris, London, Strasbourg, Vienna, Rome, Brussels, Bonn, Geneva, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Istanbul, in the process meeting with many European leaders. Beginning with 1954, after the fragmentation- of the Hungarian emigre community into ideologically divergent groups, he made several extended trips to Asia, including Japan and India in 1954, the Philippines, Hong-Kong, Burma, Thailand, India and Pakistan in 1955, Japan in 1960, and Japan, Taiwan, Thailand and Burma in 1962. On these trips he met with, among others, Nehru, Nasser, Chiang Kai-Shek, Magsaysay, Ikeda and Mohamed Ali, and took part in the Bandung Conference in 1955. Although since 1943 he made hundreds of speeches and addresses to various groups and organizations and gave interviews and press conferences for the news media, including Radio Free Europe and the Voice of America, after the fall of 1963 he concentrated on delivering lectures at colleges and universities all over the country. He received honorary LL.D. degrees from Bloomfield College and Seminary in 1948 and from the University of California at Berkeley in 1957.