Editors in Exile

For a small foreign-language paper, Manhattan's Amerikai-Magyar Nepszava, a Hungarian daily, was getting a lot of attention in international short-wave circles last week. A new editorial team had just taken over. And while a well-wishing message from President Truman was beamed to Central Europe by the Voice of America, the Moscow radio lambasted the new management as a bunch of rascals.

What annoyed the Russians was 1) the way the Nepszava (People's Voice) smuggled papers into Budapest, and 2) Nepszava's staff, a Who's Who of the Hungarians Moscow hates most. Editor in chief was Zoltan Pfeiffer, head of the Independence Party in the coalition government that was squeezed out by the Reds a year ago. Ferenc Nagy (rhymes with dodge), ex-Premier and leader of the Smallholders Party, now a small holder (130 acres) in Virginia, was a contributing editor. Others : Exile Tibor Eckhardt, onetime head of the U.S. "Free Hungarian" movement; Charles Peyer, right-wing Socialist leader;

Right-Winger Dezso Sulyok; and Father Bela Varga, once Speaker of Hungary's Parliament.

Their sponsor was a blue-eyed New Jersey manufacturer named Victor Bator, who had been chased out of Hungary in 1940 by the Nazis, and had built up a prosperous electrical insulating business. Along with Louis Szanto, Virginia tobacco grower, and John F. Montgomery, prewar U.S. minister to Hungary, Bator put up about $100,000 to buy Nepszava (circ. 23,000) from its Polish-American owners. The new owners will fight Communism at home & abroad, plug ECA and try to keep alive the idea of a free Danubian federation. They hope to double circulation among Hungarians in the U.S. and, by smuggling copies into Hungary, become a potent voice in the underground.

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