Disguised as journalism. International Organization of Journalists in Hungary

After the Czechoslovak Velvet Revolution in 1989, the news exploded as a political bomb in the local media: the country's capital provides home for several international organizations, which actually work or worked as the cover organizations of the Soviet secret service, in other words, they worked for the KGB, thereby these organizations seriously threaten the country's sovereignty. One of these was the International Organization of Journalists (IOJ), which included the most active member organizations, among others the Association of Hungarian Journalists (MÚOSZ).

IOJ was formed in Copenhagen in 1946, but its headquarter was transferred to Prague in the next year. The original goal was to compress the world’s journalists into a common labour and professional organization. Already after the statutory meeting - not without reason - raised the charge that the Soviet Union is trying to gain influence over the organization's executive committee. In parallel with the development of the bipolar world in the organization the differences deepened, which eventually led to a break: in 1950, most of the journalists of the democratic Western countries left the IOJ, and so the Soviet interest enforcements became unhindered.

The role of MÚOSZ in the IOJ became more and more important from the beginning of the 1960s. This role was institutionalized in 1966: from this date the functioning General Secretary of MÚOSZ was the Vice President and Treasurer of IOJ at the same time. The Hungarian member organization played an important role in the IOJ’s ideological "warfare" in the Third World and in the approach of the Western World’s journalists associations and the organization controlled by the KGB, meanwhile it assisted in the creation of financial resources for all these activities. The IOJ established companies also in Hungary, which enjoyed significant tax and customs waivers, and infringed the interests of the Hungarian economy with different economic abuses according to data of the Division Chief III of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

These companies piled up huge movable and immovable property by the 1980s, which disappeared without a trace at the time of the change of regime. What kind of tasks were given to the MÚOSZ from the KGB’s cover organization? How these tasks were executed? How did the Hungarian internal affairs and military intelligence infiltrate into the alliance of journalists? What kind of companies enriched the KGB’s accounts with the assistance of the Hungarian press’ management? Who were the people who operated this mechanism? The author of the recently published volume of NEB Library looks for the answers to these questions as well.