The High Price of Friendship

In the days of his exile from the fold, nobody stomped on that "fascist dog" Tito with more enthusiasm than Hun gary's bullet-headed Matyas Rakosi. He eliminated his enemies (notably former Foreign Minister Laszlo Rajk) on the charge of "Titoism" and missed no opportunity for verbal abuse of Tito himself. Then Big Brother told all good Communists they had to be nice to errant Little Brother Tito--or else. It was Tito's turn, and he demanded Rakosi eat a full portion of crow, and be quick about it.

Rakosi was naturally reluctant. He dutifully found a Beria-type scapegoat, his own ex-police chief. Peter Gabor, and blamed him for all the misunderstanding. But when Tito demanded $200 million as Yugoslavia's bill against Hungary--war reparations, damages claimed as Hungary's part in the Cominform boycott--Rakosi offered only a measly $20 million. Tito indignantly refused.

But during the winter months, Rakosi's position deteriorated. After Khrushchev's denunciation of the "cult of personality," Hungarian rank and filers began muttering complaints of Little Stalin Rakosi. At the spring meeting of the Hungarian Writers' Federation, Rakosi was called a "murderer" and a "Judas," and on a vote of confidence only 20 out of 180 writers supported the party. Rakosi's one advantage is that the Russians seem unable to find anyone to replace him. But when the news came that Tito had been invited to visit Moscow in June, Rakosi-began to act like a worried man with a vision of Tito com plaining about his noncooperation. He hastily "rehabilitated" the late Titoist Rajk, began extolling "collective leadership" and Yugoslav friendship, rushed Finance Minister Karolyi Olt to Belgrade, where the price for buying off Tito is expected to be about $130 million.

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