On May 29 journalists Pascal Riché, deputy editor-in-chief of L’Obs, and Marcel Haenen, editor of NRC Handelsblad, published articles, one in French and the other in Dutch, about their six-week trip to the United States in the summer of 1992 as part of a group tour organized by the German Marshall Fund (GMF). The GMF hoped to give the group of eleven “promising European leaders” as comprehensive a picture of the United States as a six-week trip would allow. Being quarantined and having time on their hands, the two journalists decided to track down the people who were on the trip, hoping that they would share their impressions of Viktor Orbán, who was one of the eleven. Orbán, by the way, was not the only Hungarian in the group; Zsolt Németh, another budding Fidesz politician, was the other.
The trip began in Washington, D.C. at GMF headquarters where, according to Wolfgang Krach, today editor-in-chief of Süddeutsche Zeitung, Orbán introduced himself in the following way: “My name is Viktor Orbán, I am the leader of Fidesz, and I will become the next prime minister of Hungary.” Krach was shocked and Riché was astonished at the uncommon demonstration of “determination and outspoken ambition.” One must keep in mind that in 1992 Fidesz’s popularity was impressive; the party was polling at a support level of 30%. The members of the group had the distinct feeling that GMF was very proud that they managed to include this very promising young man. He, in turn, tried to portray himself as a serious politician. Riché described him as “a kind of Napoléon, brooding and lonely.” Pauline Krikke, one of the participants and later mayor of the Hague, said that he was “someone who is very aware of the important role waiting for him.” And apparently, he acted accordingly.
Pascal Riché remembered that Orbán was “a strange, not overly sympathetic but interesting person who didn’t know much about the United States besides the Charles Bronson films he had seen as a child” and who wasn’t terribly interested in learning more about the country. His companions couldn’t recall much that seemed to interest him. He went through the motions but with little enthusiasm. There was a predetermined program within which there was an opportunity for the participants to choose different options, depending on their interests, but his fellow travelers couldn’t discern “the deeper interests” of Orbán. He often seemed uninterested in details. In any case, it was a communal trip with lots of visits between cities, sometimes by plane, sometimes by car, but always in groups.
Of course, these two close portraits contain a lot of new information about Viktor Orbán, but what I found even more intriguing was an interview he gave to Magyar Narancs after his return from the United States. A rather poor copy of this interview made it to Facebook. A comparison between the two versions reveals the man’s total self-absorption and his distortion of the story of his trip, most likely in order to elevate his own importance.
He does report at the beginning of the interview that the group was made up of French, Dutch, German, and Polish young politicians and journalists in addition to himself and Zsolt Németh, but in the rest of the interview he is alone, roaming the United States from Washington to Los Angeles. In a misleading fashion he claims that after the first week in Washington, “we all went our own ways.” First, “I studied the roles of the churches in Charleston.” From there “I went to Chicago to talk to some trade union leaders about the economic policy of the Bush administration.” The highlight of the trip for him was the Democratic National Convention held in New York, where “I had the opportunity to listen to Bill Clinton’s acceptance speech.” Note that not once does Orbán allude to the fact that most of the time he was part of a group. Not even Németh is mentioned in this interview, although we know that the two shared the same hotel room in order to save money and played billiards while others visited jazz clubs and attended baseball games.
When it came to the “lessons” of the trip, the first one he learned was that “the American is a different, not a European civilization.” He claims to have discovered that “the kind of individualism which characterizes the United States is unknown in Europe, where people feel greater responsibility for society and society for the individual.” The second lesson was that “the Americans are unbelievably nationalistic.” Third, he admired the genuine American religiosity which was accompanied by tolerance as opposed to “the occasional rabid zeal that can be found in Hungary.” Last, the group visited the Republican National Convention held in Houston, Texas, where he was horrified to learn that there are people who “want to take America back from the Blacks, the Godless, and the liberal cosmopolitans.” He found such attitudes “mind-blowing.”
I should add that this trip, which he found so useful at the time, never made it into his curriculum vitae. As if it never happened. Moreover, since 2010 Haenen and Riché have approached his office several times for an interview. He never had time for them. Why does he want to bury this trip? Could it be that, although his companions found him to be a man with a great political future, he for some reason considered his performance during the trip inadequate and unimpressive? Or that he wants to hide the person he was and the beliefs he ostensibly held in 1992? We will never know.
Im very annoyed by the mentioning of Napoleon in the Orbán context.
Napoleon
– came from a distinguished Corsican family,
– was a voracious reader,
– very good at maths,
– an excellent profesional/ military
– had keen interest in many areas,
– new no fear,
– was magnanimous with his enemies to a fault,
– acquired taste and style,
– worked hard and efficiently, etc.
Orbàn is exactly the opposite on all points.
original French text, see image in the by Eva linked Dutch article:
“Viktor est une sorte de petit Napoléon (ombrageux et solitaire)”
Viktor is like a little Napoléon (shady and solitary)
my understanding of “petit” [little] here is “a wanna be”, and then it fits perfect with all you list above…
PS: also note Animal Farm’s Napeleon, his ultimate commandment is the start of OV’s main policy:
all are equal, but some are more equal than others…
and I’m the most equal!
That will be the same Napoleon Bonaparte who was the French Hitler of the early 19th century? No doubt you will tell us he was a great reformer. He certainly reformed a lot of people into an early grave. Good one, Nappy.
I see a lot of (would-be) similarity in the two figures, except the little Viktor is still only on the “micro” scale.
Bimbi
Total BS.
Some reading will help avoid writing such nonsense. Recommend the latest – Napoleon, a Life by Andrew Roberts.
Just a minor footnote. In 1992, while in New York Orban often stayed with his then-friend, the late Laszlo Hamos, on the East Side of Manhattan. At times, he took the 96th Street bus to the West Side where I lived at the time. We spent a lot of time together. I gave a reception in his honor to West Side intellectuals, some from Columbia University, some from The New York Review of Books. About 40 people showed up. Orban’s little speech made a good impression. After all, he was part of Europe’s liberal crowd. I can’t imagine that anyone there could see in Orban today’s authoritarian politician. I certainly didn’t. His program included trips throughout the US. I think he must have had a free telephone because he called me a few times, once from Alaska. He called Prime Minister Antall from my apartment one day, but I discreetly went to another room, I didn’t hear their conversation. I do know (from Orban) that they discussed some building transfer to Fidesz. I have other memories of our encounters in Hungary itself when I should have seen his character flaws, but in the early 1990s he was a pro-US, pro-West,… Read more »
“Orban’s ambitions and calculations have trumped his convictions.”
People change their beliefs and convictions as they grow older, learn more and know better.
How about Gabor Vona ? He has changed his convictions dramatically…or it is just due to (frustrated) ambitions and political calculations ?
How about Csanád Szegedi. Thats what I call a transformation.
The point could be that you only have met OV when he was on the way of achieving his ambitions and before losing something [the 2002 “kokarda” elections!]. On the way “up” he had to hide his dark side, after losing he wasn’t able anymore to do so and his “real”, “full” self was exposed.
Reading such things about OV, I always remember the Guardian’s 2018.Jan.11 “OV’s Football Obsession” article, in which somebody who in his younger years regularly played football against OV stated:
“playing football was a way of releasing his aggression. One time he took the ball out of play. When everyone else stopped, Orbán said, ‘It’s not out’, and carried on, and scored. He was overwriting the laws: sort of ‘I’ll tell you when it’s in or out.'”
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jan/11/viktor-orban-hungary-prime-minister-reckless-football-obsession
Might be more forthright and candid for one to say that one had misperceived, hence misjudged him at the time. Looking back at all the video evidence available, the grandiosity, the vacuity, and, yes, the shadiness are so obvious now that it is hard to imagine anyone could have missed it all along. Probably it was obscured by projections of hopes and wishful thinking about Hungary’s new status and future.
Very interesting article and comment from Professor Gati, that confirms my own conversation about Orbán with the late Ferenc Fejtő in Budapest not long before his passing. He recounted to me over lunch at a mutual friend’s apartment a time, shortly before 1990, when Orbán was in Paris with a group of young Fidesz politicians, and met with Fejtő, and informed the latter that he will become Hungary’s Prime Minister and would like Fejtő to introduce him to the then French PM. (Remember, this was even before the first free parliamentary elections of 1990) Fejtő reluctantly agreed to do so, but the French PM’s appointment secy informed Fejtő that the French PM was unwilling to see the young Hungarian liberal, who was still an unknown entity at the time. Orbán would never forgive this snub, and when he became PM in 1998, one of the first things he did was to call Fejtő when he visited to remind him “You see, Uncle Feri, didn’t I tell you I’ll become Hungary’s PM? Now you believe me? Can you go tell the French PM I will not forget how he refused to see me?” Like Professor Gati, I was also an early… Read more »
He visited me in my office at Toronto City Hall in 1994, with a small group of Fidesz politicians upon my invitation. He was already at that time ignorant, self-absorbed, full of shit.
Fascinating post Professor Balogh. The replies from Professor Gati
and Mr. Gollner were equally of interest.The strange career of Viktor Orban was hard to predict although I was already alarmed at the strident language he used at the reburial of Imre Nagy, but I claim no special prescience regarding Orban. Many individuals far more gifted than myself such as Professor Gati, Mr. Gollner and of course, the very wise George Soros at one time saw something positive in Orban. I am guessing they were not wrong, but Orban made a bargain with the “devils” of
corruption, power/authoritarianism and nationalism (not patriotism!)
Like Faust, Orban will one day find that selling his soul to the cult of the self will haunt him on his death bed, if not before. When even his personal former spiritual advisor has deserted him, it is clear that Orban as Faust sold his soul to the “devil”.
Re: ‘ It’s Orbán’s unforgiving ways that led to my own departure from Hungary in 2009. I knew, he would get back into power’.
Mr. Gati’s reference to the late László Hamos brought back a memory. Knew an individual by that last name through a friend who was born in Magyarorszag. Being born here I made more American friendships while he kept to those who already came from the country. Even then I could never get a complete handle on the political discussions between these groups of ‘Magyar-Americans’. Had no idea where Mr. Hamos stood politically at the time but I had the feeling there was enough ‘discussion’ of ‘here and there’ to go around.
No doubt then it circled around ‘56. Moral: when you get older you get wiser…in many ways. And I think I have thought a little different than some of my Magyar friends who think Orban is the greatest thing since sliced kenyer.
…once upon a time… there were bright and educated individuals who decided to sacrifice their lives in the service of their nation. And the goal of the real heroes of history were exactly this, and not as Orban’s “wanting to become PM”. I do believe that already in the college room in his youth he and his buddies decided to get hold on power by any means possible, even with criminal means. And owing to the naive, uneducated and inexperienced Hungarian masses in the ways of democracy, they managed to reach their goals. Orban is not stupid, but his cleverness is that of the criminals who are exploiting the disadvantaged people, like the mafia do. Those world leaders of the day who rub shoulders with Orban are no different from him, and whatever good they may have done or tried to do, is made null and void by their association with this common criminal. History won’t be kind to either of them, but the damage is done and it will take more than just a miracle and many years getting back to ‘normality’, if it is possible at all…
Willen die Madoc maecte already knew Viktor Orbán, when, around 1250, he wrote the story of “Reynard the Fox”. OV’s cleverness, I would call slyness, a characteristic that he did not acquire upon turning to right wing politics. It must be a personality trait, noticed in him long before yet obscured by his liberal rhetoric. However, just like Reynard, OV mercilessly exploits the stupidity of the masses, for the simple reason that he can. His intelligence is not used in wisdom and for the common good. No, he employs his slyness, lets rip his “instincts” while others hold themselves up to a moral code. A moral code that, by Reynard’s shrewd and immoral manipulations, is dropped in a snap to make place for vengefulness and cruelty. Read the poem, it is about him!
I think that, in history, he is more of a rule than an exception and, luckily, so is our opposition and abhorrence.
I met him several times as well as his wife.
He never looked me in the eye.
Typical shifty character, even in the pizzeria photo, ie. in his youth his grin is so fake….
Fascinating!
I hadn’t known that O1G did visit North America too – always thought that after his stay in England he realized what a small, limited country Hungary was …
It might be interesting to collect more memories of him from those times by relevant persons, I’m sure that they remember him – or not?
PS:
How was his knowledge of English, anyone remember that?
His English language knowledge was OK.
Eva, we, of course talked in Hungarian. But I heard him talk in English in public, once at the London Medical Society as a guest of the British Hungarian Society and once at the home of Lord Montague. The BHS conducted all meetings in English. He would not have been invited to speak through an interpreter.
The question is what year we are talking about. Both authors say that his English was very poor and often Németh had to help him. That was in 1992. He himself said that he really learned English in the United States during those six weeks. I heard him speak English during his visit to the White House in 1998 and it was still quite poor. Half way through his switched into Hungarian.
Eva, when I heard him, the second time during his first term as PM, he spoke OK English. I dare say he did not do so before then. We may not like him for various reasons. But his is a success story,
Well, there are success stories and success stories. There have been many people whose careers could be considered success stories, but whose activities have been despised by all decent men and women. His success story is that kind.
According to his companions, “he didn’t really speak English.” He was madly learning vocabulary every morning. According to Németh he got up at 6:00 in order to study. One of the two journalists claims that often Németh helped him when he had to make a speech.
Since the only person at that time “obsessed” with Orbán was Orbán, perhaps your summation is appropriate. Some things never change.
DAY 75 OF THE “ME-FIRST” ON-GOING DICTATORSHIP
….self-love wins through again.
What stands out Orban could not build up relationships back then Communication was/is the problem and he wanted to save money …
… If I imagine I would be invited to make a USA trip with other budding politicians that would be great. I would certainly not play billiards instead of visiting clubs to save money.
If you don’t want to communicate and want to save money, then you just stay at home. But that does not suit a politician. Communication is still Orban’s problem today and saves our money in his pockets. In that sense there was no development.
A bit OT:
I was lucky to be invited to several (paid …) business trips all over the USA in the mid 80s. Then and later on holiday (more than 20 times …) I made it a rule that I/we would go out in the evening, have a look around (and a pint or two …) and try to talk with the “natives”. We had some fascinating and enlightening experiences – the last ones especially when I went there with my new wife and told people that her English wasn’t too good and that she was Hungarian. Almost everybody did know nothing about Hungary at all …
I was once in the USA and Canada it was an unforgettable vacation. We had rented a pickup truck and spent the nights at campsites. Once we met three elderly retired couples who were travelling with their huge motorhomes and they invited us when they found out that we were German.The men were stationed with the army in Germany. They visited the Oktoberfest in Munich together and were totally excited when they told us about it. The next day they came and packed us food for the micro so we wouldn’t starve, sweet. We had many nice experiences, maybe I will tell you a story or two. One family had relatives in Germany and they showed us the picture, maybe we would know them. At least they knew Germany but thought it was a city.
Don, of course you wouldn’t play billiards with someone you see very often anyway, while others visited jazz clubs. No person with a social life and the least interest in culture would do so. But did anybody say that the dictator would have any of these? And an even much more typical trait of Orbán:
Németh said that he has shot his friend in America so many times that he managed to win 150 scoops of ice cream. “I still need to get them, by the way.”
If I took every curse against Orban’s politics as a shot, it would be a multiple of 150.
Good comment, DK. Communication certainly has not been one of his talents, except with his own groupies, who feed him with ideas and those who are charged to carry out his decisions. Of course, he now runs a system where ‘open communication’ to the electorate at large, his fellow-citizens, is completely unnecessary and thus does not need to happen and doesn’t. In this there is a strong parallel with a Mafia “family” in the Italian style.
Re „Mafia “family” in the Italian style“
Bimbi now that you write it, I remember a sentence from Orban that explains his thinking and his missing vision. “Oda kell feljutnunk, ahol minden megvilágosodik, és minden értelmet nyer.” It’s a perfect match for Orban Mafia Hungary. From http://www.miniszterelnok.hu/orban-viktor-unnepi-beszede-4
I found it very interesting to read about the character of the dictator and how people thought about him already in 1992 – in the piece Éva wrote, in comments here (thanks for sharing), and the linked NRC article. I found very typical the following quote:
Heike Witzel (57) from Halle, working for the Evangelical Church in Germany, says Orbán only showed interest in people who had something to offer to him. “He was very calculating. I wasn’t important and therefore not interesting to him .”
Nothing changed.
Istvan- thanks for comment by Heike Witzel. There are many ways to look at Orban’s character as your post illustrates. The dialogue today is great.
Back then , in the 1970s it was Jimmy Carter who used the same bold approach in self-introduction, “Hi, my name’s Jimmy Carter. I’m the Governor of Georgia and I’m going to be your next President”.
That must have reached young Orbán’s ear and he adopted it for himself.
When did Carter say that? When actually running for president or years before the next election? For me it is the difference between optimistic campaigning and arrogance….
My (unreliable) recall associates the ‘intro’ with pressing flesh during his campaign.
This is a photo of Orban on his 1992 trip to the USA with Anikó Lévai having pizza with members of the Szablya family. On this trip Orban spent a lot of time courting the Hungarian American Coalition and the American Hungarian Federation, which worked out well for Orban. Helen and John Szablya were important members of the American Hungarian community. The Helen and John had seven children, 16 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Helen was a staff writer for the Washington Post and a columnist, for the US News and World Report. She was fluent in several languages in addition to Hungarian and came to Canada and later the USA following 1956. Members of the Szablya family are still involved in international trade with Hungary.
Oh I believe Helen took the photo so she is not in it.
This couldn’t be in 1992. Anikó was not part of the group. It was most likely taken when the two of them made a private trip in the United States, sometime after 2002.
The Szablya family lists it as 1992 in their photo caption, which is why I posted it. Is it possible she joined in for part of the trip and was not part of the official GMF delegation? Both of them look pretty young for it being after 1992.
Eva you also may find it humorous that the photo caption indicated it was taken at “Godfather’s pizza” restaurant.
It made my day just as much as the piece of news I read (perhaps in the NYT) that Trump’s old military school went backrupt and the property was bought up by a Chinese businessman.
Yes, most likely that’s the case, but I have the feeling that Orbán skipped a great deal of the program he was suppose to attend, got here his wife and was working on his own political career. In the interview he specifically said that he spent 6 weeks in the United States and four weeks elsewhere.
As I recall, she joined her husband in the US for the last week or two of his trip.
I did not meet Orban on his 1992 visit to Chicago, at that time I was working with a UN mission in Somalia as part of a US Army contingent. That mission did not effectively stabilize Somalia as is obvious from the long running civil war there. My father who was a trade union leader in Chicago still in 1992 did met with Orban and the GMF group as part of the Chicago Federation of Labor (CFL). He told me he explained to Orban in Hungarian how CFL functioned with the Democratic Party in Chicago which Orban was most interested in.
At the time Democrat Richard M. Daley was Mayor who was the son of the late Mayor Richard J Daley. Effectively the Democrat machine was restored to power following the brief rule of a more left wing African American Mayor and some of the normal rules relating to patronage and unions had been restored. Orban found that historical context very interesting apparently.
What he says about his meeting with union leaders in Chicago gives the impression that what he was told by them about the Bush administration’s economic policies was anything but positive. The exact expression is that they exchanged “néhány keresetlen szót.”
That would not be surprising since none of the leadership of the CFL were Republicans back then. The Teamsters Union was back then the major US union supporting Republicans. Even the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police back then supported Democrats generally, President Bush senior did not support unionization of police or public sector unionization for the most part. Robert Healey, was the President of the CFL back then and was the head of the public sector teacher’s union.
George HW Bush fully supported Regan’s breaking the Air Controllers Union as his vice President. President Regan fired 11,359 air-traffic controllers striking in violation of his order for them to return to work. I am sure the CFL officers that met with the GMF visitors would have been hostile to Bush, I voted for George HW Bush and my father was not pleased at all. I also do not know if Orban visited any Hungarian churches in 1992 in Chicago, since I was not here.
Re: Orban ‘studying’ the churches in Charleston.. The city’s history of religious tolerance where many sects worshipped perhaps showed to him a discomfiture with how the ‘Holy City’ managed pluralism. If he did Magyarorszag would not be so steeped in its one-religion Christian nationalism today. Too many religions produce too many potential problems. In fact religious affairs is just one of many institutions where in his mind the characteristic feature of ‘oneness’ and ‘singularity’ must reign over the ‘many’. Curious if he was flabbergasted as how subsumed individual states could co-exist politically within a Federal government and not kill each other. For a ‘statesman’ there is something there to explore and understand no matter where you live. The Tao says the ‘journey is the reward’. Not too sure Orban saw it that way. The US is a big place. It probably awed him with its great diversity. Wondering if his trip here in the US provided a reaction such as myself when Kadar life beckoned to me. You just couldn’t believe that people lived that way. And then you make your post-travel assessments.Mine was looking at something always approaching a ‘slow death’. Arguably being that ‘ Napoléon’,… Read more »
wrfree
Orbàn was and remained provincial, narrow minded, uncivilized because
he didn’t have much interest in anything other than soccer and what would bring him power/recognition and later money (as another form of recognition).
It seems to be in 1992 – the filename of the picture has 1992 in it
dr_Victor_Orban_PM_1998_and_2010_of_Hungary_and_his_wife_dr_Anik_Lvai_with_Szablyas_1992-x_large
“Victor Orbán, Hungary’s Prime Minister 1998-2002 and now 2010-2014, with his wife, Dr. Anikó Lévai, when they were still really young. Victor Orbán was Head of the FIDESZ Party even then. Dinner with the Szablya Family at Godfather’s Pizza.”
http://www.helenmszablya.com/newsletter.htm
And here a picture of O1G and Donald, nice, isn’t it?
https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-952d632952ce016ddf86b3916e737ce7
with motion and no not nice but idiots.
Seth Meyers on his ‘Late Night’ show said this of MAGA MAGA Trump’s move on Dusko from Montenegro: “You’re a world leader at a meeting of dignitaries and you act like they just called your number at KFC”. 😀
KFC if some do not know the acronym is the fast food operator ‘Kentucky Fried Chicken’.
wrfree oh, I did not know that KFC is so uncivilized. 😀
Well, in German we have a very bad joke – in a tv program they called it:
Kentucky schreit Ficken! 🙂 🙂
Das hast du aber gefickt eingeschädelt, fand ich persönlich ganz witzig. Ich hoffe du wirst nicht bächtig Möse. Can you do it in English?
A Big Pompous Assh.. and a small, wannabe pompous, one … note the latter’s very fake grin – as if he’s communication with someone ..