Bela Kiraly Views

General Goods

BY CHARACTER but also professionally, I am a fan of the very old. There is a special excitement to interviewing someone who retains clear memories of some long-ago moment of history. I felt a pang of sadness today, on learning of the death at 97 of Bela Kiraly, military commander of the Hungarian uprising of 1956. In a previous professional life, I interviewed General Kiraly in his home in Budapest, and it was an astonishing afternoon. I am glad I still have my detailed notes to jog my own memory: at several points the general padded off to pour us lethally large glasses of whisky, which appeared to have no effect on him whatsoever.

INTERVIEWER:t Interview on the first of June, nineteen ninety six with Dr Bela Kiraly, member, or should I say, Commander of the Hungarian National Guard during the Hungarian Revolution of October/November nineteen fifty six. Can I first start by asking you, how did you get to hear that there was a revolution?

Bela Kiraly, army officer and historian: born Kaposvar 14 April 1912; member, General Staff, Hungarian Army 1942-45; commander of infantry troops 1949-50, Commandant, Hungarian Military Academy 1950-51; imprisoned 1951-56; Commander-in-Chief, National Guard and military Commander of Budapest 1956; teaching staff, Brooklyn College and City University New York 1963-83; member, Hungarian Parliament 1990-94; married 1947 Sarolta G

Bela Kalman Kiraly was born on April 14, 1912, in Kaposvar, in southwest Hungary. After graduating from the state military academy in Budapest, he served as an army officer in World War II. In later years, General Kiraly said in interviews that he had tried to join the Russian side in the war rather than serve with Hungary