Fwd: For Stephen Hiltner
Bela Liptak
From: lipta...@aol.com
To: let...@nytimes.com
Cc: pkru...@princeton.edu, op...@nytimes.com
Sent: 8/29/2022 11:21:09 AM Eastern Standard Time
Subject: For Stephen Hiltner
August 29, 2022, Stamford
Mr. Stephen Hiltner,
Editor, Travel Desk of the New Yok Times
Dear Mr. Hiltner or as you prefer, Pityu,
Thanks a lot for your excellent report on Budapest, in which you have perfectly captured the atmosphere and the mood of this old and much suffered city. I am also glad to read, that as a young American, you still feel being at home there. I am 50 years older than you (my son also works at the Times) and would like to metion two distant events that might still contribute to the present attitudes of Hungarians:
One is that in 1920, in Trianon, the winners of WW1 decided to dismember Hungary and - although President Wilson never signed that treaty - millions of people living in their thousand year old towns and villages built by their ancestors, went to bed as Hungarians and woke up as foreigners in some other state.
In 1956, when president Eisenhower announced his policy of "self liberation", we took up arms against the Soviets, beat back their first attack and waited for help. The threatening of that help turned out to be just that, a threat, which the French and English used as a bargaining chip to regain excess to the Sues Canal. One week later, the second attack by the Soviets demolished our resistance, Hungary's Prime Minister was hanged and the nation lost 3% of her population, - mostly well educted young people - (including myself) and more importantly, lost the conviction, that the future of Hungary is in the hands of Hungarians.
The photos below show how the tides of history of the last 30 years influanced Hungary's prime minister and based on that, it is possible that after the next 30 years, you might report from Budapest, that Hungary is not only part of the family of the European democracies, but is also a leader in the advance of science, (just as was Neumann who invented the computr or Szilárd who patented nuclear reaction).
Best regards,
Béla Lipták
1989 június 16
1989 szeptember
2021
2022
32 év alatt nem csak a derékbőség, de a példakép is megváltozott
Sent from AOL DesktopBéla Lipták, Automation and Safety ConsultantLifetime Achievement award of International Society of Automation84 Old North Stamford Rd., Stamford CT,T: 203 357 7614, E: lipta...@aol.com