BUDAPEST

Our plans took us to Budapest, Hungary. Here we were able to observe the first free elections in over 45 years (technically the first free election in over 1100 years, the election in 1945 was overthrown to put the communists into power). We boarded the Hungarian airline, and were terrified to notice some glaring differences between flying on an American/European aircraft and the iron-curtain variety. First of all, there were no overhead “bins,” just shelves to put all our heavy stuff on. No one cared if our tables were in their upright and locked positions. In fact, the “tables” where perfectly cut plywood rectangles that folded in half on brass hinges. You could poke a knee out on these 90 degree weapons just getting in and out of your seat!

We were all picked up at the airport by a bus, and our guide for the duration was a young man name “Gabor,” (as in “Eva!”). He pointed out the Danube river (pronounced daNOOB in Hungarian), and we crossed from the Buda to the Pest side where we settled into our hotel. Here I have to stop for a minute and state for the record that the Poles had good food, but the Hungarians had the best food in the world – no matter where we went or what we ate – it was simply the best food ever! I could happily gain 200 lbs if ever I stayed there for more than a couple of days – and it would be worth every ounce.

At one little restaurant, we were treated with the gypsy violin player, and then the Transylvanians sitting next to us began to sing their anthem of independence (which they desired from Hungary). In the communist days, many otherwise separate countries were forced to behave as one, and with the break up of the Soviet Union, all the otherwise separate nations wanted to resume their historical separations. This would cause many problems, particularly in Yugoslavia.

Also, here in Hungary, the mission seemed to break down. Frank and Studibert had not fixed our agenda except for shopping and dinning. However, we did observe the elections, and watched the results in the U.S. Embassy. But there was a problem getting into the Embassy – and I would find out later why Studiber himself was probably source of that problem.

We ran into Walter Mondale. He was there to observe the elections as well (I wondered what had happened to him?). We witnessed masses of people streaming into the polling places. Old men escorting their even older fathers to cast their secret ballots. Where a citizen was too infirmed to vote, the ballot box was taken to them by one of the election officials. We followed one of these boxes with our cameras, and have on video tape the account of an elderly woman filling out her ballot. When she had completed it, she carefully folded it into quarters and held it above the box and pronounced these words in Hungarian: “I am casting this vote for my sister, who was murdered by the Russian tanks in 1956,” and she cast her paper with that precious vote -- bought with innocent blood -- into the ballot box (I never miss voting in any election, no matter how insignificant it may seem).