It was almost World War III

Fifty years after the Hungarian uprising, David Rennie talks to Bela Kiraly, now 94, who was urged to call for Western help — a call that could all too easily have sparked nuclear war

Budapest

Half a century ago Bela Kiraly was invited to start World War III. He said no, though the price was the enslavement of his native Hungary by Soviet invaders. Kiraly was military chief of the Hungarian revolution at the time. The invitation was made on 4 November 1956 by an American reporter, who had somehow tracked him down in the blood-soaked centre of Budapest. The newspaperman was eager for a great scoop: a formal appeal for US military help, to fight off Soviet forces sent to crush Hungary’s week-old national uprising.

Colonel General Kiraly, to give him his formal rank, is 94 now, though he makes not the slightest concession to his age. He is exhausting — if magnificent — company, leaping from his chair to search out useful photographs or papers, or padding across his suburban Budapest cottage to pour another, lethally generous Scotch.